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ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 



OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

PSYCHOLOGICAL 

Scientific Mental Healing 

Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters 

The Riddle of Personality 



HISTORICAL 

Woman in the Making of America 
Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road 
The Romance of American Expansion 



Adventurings in the 
Psychical 



BY 
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1914 






Copyright, 1914, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 



Published, April, 1914 



APR -7 1914 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 



fo 



sT~ 



©CI.A369581 



PREFACE 

THE present volume is somewhat in the nature 
of a sequel to " The Riddle of Personality," 
published six years ago. In that book I reviewed 
the results of modern psychological research in 
the realm of the abnormal and the seemingly 
supernormal, with the special purpose of making 
clear their bearings on the problem of the nature 
and possibilities of man. Having this special 
purpose in mind, it was inadvisable to attempt 
any topical and detailed treatment of the phe- 
nomena made the subject of scientific investiga- 
tion. Such a method of treatment, no matter 
how it might have added to the interest of the 
book, would inevitably have obscured its mes- 
sage to the reader. 

Now, however, I have undertaken this very 
thing, in the hope both of reinforcing the view 
of personality set forth in the earlier work, and 
of contributing something towards a wider knowl- 

[v] 



PREFACE 

edge of the progress science is making in the 
naturalization of the supernatural, to borrow Mr. 
Frank Podmore's happy phrase. Especially have 
I tried to bring out the exceedingly practical 
character of many of the discoveries made by 
those scientists who, despite the often contemp- 
tuous criticism of their colleagues, have valiantly 
persisted in their adventurings in the psychical. 
The world has undoubtedly been the gainer, and 
richly the gainer, by their labors; and it surely 
is well worth while to survey in some detail the 
field they have explored and the results of their 
explorations. 

H. Addington Bruce. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
February, 1914. 



VI 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 


Preface 


PAGE 

V 


I. 


Ghosts and their Meaning . 


1 


II. 


Why I Believe in Telepathy „ . 


58 


III. 


Clairvoyance and Crystal-Gazing 


102 


IV. 


Automatic Speaking and Writing 


134 


V. 


Poltergeists and Mediums . 


171 


VI. 


The Subconscious .... 


201 


VII. 


Dissociation and Disease 


230 


VIII. 


The Singular Case of BCA 


265 


IX. 


The Larger Self .... 


290 




Index 


315 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE 
PSYCHICAL 

CHAPTER I 

GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

A WITTY Frenchwoman was once asked if 
she believed in ghosts. 

" No, not at all," was her reply. " But I am 
terribly afraid of them." 

Most people feel precisely this way about 
ghosts, though few are candid enough to ac- 
knowledge it. In broad daylight, or when seated 
before a cheery fire among a group of congenial 
friends, it is easy to be skeptical, and to regard 
ghosts as mere products of imagination, super- 
stition, credulity, hysteria, or indigestion. But 
it is notorious that even the most skeptical are 
liable to creepy sensations and sometimes outright 
panic if they experience " uncanny " sights or 
sounds in the darkness of the night, or in lonely, 

in 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

uninhabited places. Churchyards have never 
been popular resorts of those who go for a stroll 
in the cool of the evening. And let a house once 
get the reputation of being " haunted," it is next 
to impossible to find tenants for it. 

Yet this almost universal attitude is entirely 
and fundamentally wrong. There is no reason 
for being afraid of ghosts, and there are many 
reasons for believing in them. 

I do not, of course, mean to say that all ghosts 
are real ghosts. There are plenty of bogus ghosts, 
and there always will be, as long as men eat and 
drink too much, play practical jokes on one an- 
other, and allow their houses to become run down 
and infested by rats and mice. 

A single rat, scampering at midnight over the 
loose planks of an old attic, has often been quite 
sufficient to produce a counterfeit " poltergeist," 
or troublesome ghost, of a highly impressive char- 
acter. So, too, a pillow-slip swaying from a 
clothesline is apt to seem most ghostly to a gentle- 
man returning home from a late supper. Ghosts, 
like much else in this amazing world of ours, have 
to be pretty sharply scrutinized. 

[2] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

And the point is that, after centuries of con- 
temptuous neglect, they have at last been made 
the subject of investigation by men and women 
competent for the task — persons trained in the 
cautious methods of scientific inquiry, and in- 
sisting upon the strictest evidential standards, 
but devoid of prejudice or prepossession. Their 
researches are still in progress, but they have 
already demonstrated that amid a multitude of 
sham ghosts there are perfectly authentic appari- 
tions, displaying credentials too convincing to be 
denied. 

What is still more important, the labors of these 
scientific ghostologists — especially of those en- 
rolled in the famous English Society for Psychical 
Research — have also resulted in throwing much 
light on the nature, origin, and habits of real ghosts. 

Usually, it seems, a genuine ghost is seen or 
heard but once or twice, and then, having ac- 
complished its purpose, it departs to return no 
more. But there are plenty of well-attested cases 
in which a ghost attaches itself to a house or 
family, and keeps up its haunting for years, some- 
times for centuries. 

[3] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Take, for example, an experience that befell 
Miss Goodrich-Freer, at the time a most active 
member of the Society for Psychical Research, in 
Hampton Court Palace. This old building is 
unquestionably one of the most famous of all 
haunted houses. It dates back to the time of 
the first Tudors, and according to tradition is 
haunted by several ghosts, notably the ghosts of 
Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third queen; Catha- 
rine Howard, whose spirit is said to go shrieking 
along the gallery where she vainly begged brutal 
King Henry to spare her life; and Sybil Penn, 
King Edward VTs foster-mother. Twice of late 
years the Howard ghost — or something that 
passed for it — has been heard, once by Lady 
Eastlake, and once by Mrs. Cavendish Boyle. 
The latter was sleeping in an apartment next to 
the haunted gallery — which has long been un- 
occupied and used only as a storeroom for old 
pictures — when she was suddenly awakened by 
a loud and most unearthly shriek proceeding 
from that quarter, followed immediately by per- 
fect silence. Lady Eastlake's experience was 
exactly similar. 

[4] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

Both ladies, of course, may have heard a real 
shriek, possibly coming from some nightmare- 
tormented occupant of the palace. But no ex- 
planation of this sort is adequate in the case of 
Miss Goodrich-Freer, who passed a night at 
Hampton Court for the sole purpose of ascertain- 
ing whether or not there was any foundation for 
its ghostly legends. 

The room she selected for her vigil was one 
especially reputed to be haunted, and opened into 
a second room, the door between the two, how- 
ever, being blocked by a heavy piece of furniture. 
Thus the only means of entrance into her room 
was by a door from the corridor, and this she 
locked and bolted. After which, feeling confident 
that nothing but a real ghost could get in to 
trouble her, she settled down to read an essay on 
"Shall We Degrade Our Standard of Value?" 
a subject manifestly free from matters likely to 
occasion nervousness. 

In fact, the essay was so dull that by half past 
one Miss Goodrich-Freer, not able to keep awake 
longer, undressed, dropped into bed, and was 
almost instantly asleep. Several hours later she 

[5] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

was aroused by a noise as of some one opening 
the furniture-barricaded door. At this she put 
out her hand to reach a match-box which she 
knew was lying on a table at the head of the bed. 

" I did not reach the matches," she reports. 
" It seemed to me that a detaining hand was laid 
on mine. I withdrew it quickly and gazed around 
into the darkness. Some minutes passed in black- 
ness and silence. I had the sensation of a presence 
in the room, and finally, mindful of the tradition 
that a ghost should be spoken to, I said gently: 
' Is any one there? Can I do anything for you? ' 
I remembered that the last person who enter- 
tained the ghost had said : ' Go away, I don't 
want you,' and I hoped that my visitor would 
admire my better manners and be responsive. 
However, there was no answer, no sound of any 
kind." 

Now Miss Goodrich-Freer left the bed and felt 
all around the room in the dark, until satisfied 
that she was alone. The corridor door was still 
locked and bolted; the piece of furniture against 
the inner door was in place. So she returned to 
bed. Almost at once a soft light began to glow 

[6] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

with increasing brightness. It seemed to radiate 
from a central point, which gradually took form 
and became a tall, slender woman, moving slowly 
across the room. At the foot of the bed she 
stopped, so that the amazed observer had time to 
examine her profile and general appearance. 

" Her face," Miss Goodrich-Freer says, " was 
insipidly pretty, that of a woman from thirty to 
thirty-five years of age, her figure slight, her dress 
of a soft, dark material, having a full skirt and 
broad sash or soft waistband tied high up almost 
under her arms, a crossed or draped handkerchief 
over the shoulders and sleeves which I noticed 
fitted very tight below the elbow. In spite of all 
this definiteness I was conscious that the figure 
was unsubstantial, and felt quite guilty of ab- 
surdity in asking once more: * Will you let me 
help you? Can I be of any use to you? ' 

" My voice sounded preternaturally loud, but 
I felt no surprise at noticing that it produced no 
effect upon my visitor. She stood still for perhaps 
two minutes, though it is very difficult to estimate 
time on such occasions. Then she raised her 
hands, which were long and white, and held them 

[7] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

before her as she sank upon her knees and slowly 
buried her face in the palms in an attitude of 
prayer — when quite suddenly the light went 
out, and I was alone in the darkness. 

" I felt that the scene was ended, the curtain 
drawn, and had no hesitation in lighting the candle 
at my side. . . . The clock struck four." 

Again investigation showed that the corridor 
door was locked and bolted as she had left it, and 
the inner door still firmly barricaded. Conse- 
quently, skeptical though she had been when 
she arrived at Hampton Court Palace, Miss Good- 
rich-Freer in leaving it entertained no doubt that 
she had witnessed a genuine psychical manifes- 
tation. 

The same conclusion was forced upon two 
ladies, Miss Elizabeth Morison and Miss Frances 
Lamont, in connection with a visit paid by them 
to another famous haunted house, the Petit 
Trianon at Versailles, the favorite summer home 
of that unfortunate queen Marie Antoinette, 
whose ghost, as well as the ghosts of her attend- 
ants, has long been alleged to be visible at times 
in and around it. Miss Morison and Miss Lamont 

[8] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

had been sightseeing in the royal palace, but 

tiring of this had set off, in the early afternoon, 

to walk to the Trianon. Neither of them knew 

just where it was located, but taking the general 

direction indicated on Baedeker's map, they 

finally came to a broad drive, which, had they 

only known it, would have led them directly to 

their destination. As it was, they crossed the 

drive and went up a narrow lane through a thick 

wood to a point where three paths diverged. Here 

they began to have a series of experiences which, 

comparatively insignificant in themselves, had a 

sequel so amazing that it would be incredible 

were it not that the veracity of both ladies has 

been established beyond question. 

Ahead of them, on the middle path, they saw 

two men clad in curious, old-fashioned costumes 

of long, greenish coats, knee breeches, and small, 

three-cornered hats. Taking them for gardeners, 

they asked to be shown the way, and were told 

1 In a prefatory note to the book, " An Adventure," in which 
these ladies detail their experience, their publishers, Messrs. 
Macmillan and Company, of London, guarantee " that the 
authors have put down what happened to them as faithfully 
and accurately as was in their power." Their good faith is also 
vouched for by a reviewer in The Spectator. 

[9] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

to go straight ahead. This brought them to a 
little clearing that had in it a light garden kiosk, 
circular and like a bandstand, near which a man 
was seated. As they approached, he turned his 
head and stared at them, and his expression was 
so repellent that they felt greatly frightened. 
The next instant, coming from they knew not 
where, and breathless as if from running, a second 
man appeared, and speaking in French of a pe- 
culiar accent, ordered them brusquely to turn to 
the right, saying that the Trianon lay in that 
direction. Just as they reached it, they were 
again intercepted, this time by a young man who 
stepped out of a rear door, banged it behind him, 
and with a somewhat insolent air guided them to 
the main entrance of the palace. 

While they were hurrying thither, Miss Mori- 
son noticed a lady, seated below a terrace, holding 
out a paper as though reading at arm's length. 
She glanced up as they passed, and Miss Morison, 
observing with surprise the peculiar cut of her 
gown, saw that she had a pretty " though not 
young " face. 

" I looked straight at her," she adds in the 
[10] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

published statement she has made regarding their 
adventure, " but some indescribable feeling made 
me turn away, disturbed at her being there." 

Afterwards this " indescribable feeling " was 
accounted for when Miss Morison identified in a 
rare portrait of Marie Antoinette the lady she 
had seen seated below the terrace! 

Still more remarkable, subsequent visits to the 
Trianon brought to both ladies the startling 
knowledge that the actual surroundings of the 
place and the place itself differ vastly from what 
they saw that summer afternoon. The woods 
they entered are not there, and have not been 
there in the memory of man; the paths they trod 
have long been effaced; there is no kiosk, nor does 
anybody living, except Miss Morison and Miss 
Lamont, remember having seen one in the Tria- 
non grounds; on the very spot where Miss Mori- 
son saw the lady in the peculiar dress a large bush 
is growing; and the rear door, out of which 
stepped the young man who guided them around 
to the front, opens from an old chapel that has 
been in a ruinous condition for many years, the 
door itself being " bolted, barred, and cob- 

[in 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

webbed," and unused since the time of Marie 
Antoinette. 

On the other hand, their personal researches in 
the archives of France have brought to light so 
many confirmatory facts that both Miss Morison 
and Miss Lamont are firmly persuaded that the 
Trianon, its environment, and its people were 
once exactly as they appeared to them; and that 
in very truth they saw the place as it looked, not 
at the time they first visited it, but in the closing 
years of the French Monarchy, more than a cen- 
tury before. 

That historic German ghost, the White Lady of 
the Hohenzollerns, would likewise seem to have 
more than a legendary basis. Her mission, ap- 
parently, is to announce the death of some mem- 
ber of the Hohenzollern family, and her most 
frequent haunting-place is the royal palace at 
Berlin. She was seen as early as 1628, and since 
the time of Frederick the Great her appearance 
has been regularly chronicled on the eve of the 
death of the King of Prussia. 

For the matter of that, there are not a few 
families whose ancestral homes, according to tra- 

[121 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

dition, are haunted by death-announcing ghosts. 
This is particularly the case with certain distin- 
guished British families. Two white owls perching 
on the roof of the family mansion are taken as a 
sure omen of death in the Arundel of Wardour 
family. The Yorkshire Middletons, a Catholic 
family, are said to be warned of approaching death 
by the apparition of a Benedictine nun. Equally 
noteworthy as a spectral messenger of tragedy 
is the so-called Drummer of Cortachy Castle, a 
Scottish ghost that haunts the ancient stronghold 
of the Ogilvys, Earls of Airlie, but is in evidence 
only when an Ogilvy is about to die. 

The story goes that, hundreds of years ago, 
when the Scots were little better than barbarians, 
a Highland chieftain sent a drummer to Cortachy 
Castle with a message that was not at all to the 
liking of the Ogilvy of that time. As an appro- 
priate token of his displeasure, he seized the 
luckless drummer, stuffed him into his drum — 
he must have been a very small drummer, and 
have carried a very big drum — and hurled him 
from the topmost battlements of the castle, break- 
ing his neck. 

[13] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Just before he was tossed off, the drummer 
threatened to make a ghost of himself, and haunt 
the Ogilvys forevermore. He has been, it would 
seem, as good as his word. Every once in a while 
ghostly drumming is heard at Cortachy Castle, 
and always the death of an Ogilvy follows. An 
especially impressive account of one instance of 
this peculiar and most unpleasant haunting has 
been left by a Miss Dalrymple, who happened to 
be a guest at Cortachy during Christmas week of 
1844. 

It was her first visit to the Castle, and she was 
entirely unaware of the existence of the family 
ghost. On the evening of her arrival, while dress- 
ing for dinner, she was startled by hearing under 
her window music like the muffled beating of a 
drum. She looked out, but could see nothing, and 
presently the drumming died away. For the time 
she thought no more of it, but at dinner she 
turned to her host, the Earl of Airlie, and asked: 

" My lord, who is your drummer? " 

His lordship made no reply, Lady Airlie became 
exceedingly pale, and several of the company, 
all of whom had heard the question, looked em- 

[141 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

barrassed. Realizing that she had made a slip 
of some sort, Miss Dalrymple quickly changed the 
subject, but after dinner, naturally feeling some- 
what curious, she brought it up with one of the 
younger members of the family, and was an- 
swered : 

" What ! Have you never heard of the Drummer 
of Cortachy? " 

" No," said she. " Who in the world is he? " 

" Why, he is a person who goes about playing 
his drum whenever there is a death impending 
in our family. The last time he was heard was 
shortly before the death of the late countess, the 
earl's first wife, and that is why Lady Airlie turned 
so pale when you mentioned it." 

The next night Miss Dalrymple heard the 
drumming again, and, falling into a panic when 
she learned that nobody else had heard it, hur- 
riedly left Cortachy Castle. But the drumming 
was not for her. True to tradition, the drummer 
was concerned only with announcing the death of 
an Ogilvy, one of whom, the Lady Airlie who had 
been so disturbed by Miss Dalrymple's question, 
died soon afterward while on a visit to Brighton. 
[15] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Five years later the drumming was once more 
heard, this time by an Englishman who had been 
invited to spend a few days with the Earl of 
Airlie's oldest son, Lord Ogilvy, at a shooting 
box near Cortachy. Crossing a gloomy moor, 
in company with an old Highlander, the English- 
man suddenly stopped, and, with a look of amaze- 
ment, exclaimed: 

" What can a band be doing in this lonely 
place? Has Lord Ogilvy brought a band with 
him? " 

The Highlander glanced at him strangely. 

" I hear naething," he said. 

" Why, yes, can't you hear it? A band playing 
in the distance — or at any rate, somebody play- 
ing a drum." 

" An' is it a drum ye hear? " cried the High- 
lander. ;< Then 'tis something no canny." 

In another moment the lighted windows of the 
shooting box came into view, and the English- 
man hastened forward, fully expecting to have 
the mystery solved. But he found no musicians 
— only a scene of considerable confusion. Lord 
Ogilvy, it appeared, had just started for London, 
[161 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

summoned by news that his father was danger- 
ously ill. 

And the very next day, as the Englishman's 
Highlander guide was not at all surprised to 
learn, the Earl of Airlie died. 

Of all family ghosts, however, none is so strongly 
substantiated by documentary 1 evidence as the 
Knocking Ghost of the Basil Woodds, an old 
English family. This ghost began operations 
about the time of the Stuart Restoration, and it 
is alleged has ever since continued to announce, 
by three or more loud knocks, the approaching 
death of a Basil Woodd. First-hand and thor- 
oughly trustworthy accounts are extant of its 
activity in quite recent times. 

December 15, 1893, Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd 
died at Hampstead, England, after a brief illness. 
The night before he died the Knocking Ghost 
,was heard by two persons, at Hampstead by his 
daughter, and in London by his son, the Reverend 
Trevor Basil Woodd. Both have made state- 
ments describing their singular experiences. 

1 The documents in this case are published in the Proceedings 
of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, pp. 538-542. 

[17] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" On Thursday evening, December 14, 1893, 
after church," says the Reverend Mr. Woodd, 
" I was sitting before my fire. I knew my father 
was ill, and had a presentiment that he was 
dangerously ill, though if I had known this I 
should have remained at Hampstead, where I 
had been that day. As I sat, I distinctly heard 
three knocks, perhaps more, like the sound of 
some one emptying a tobacco pipe upon the bars 
of my fire grate. 

" Thinking it might be a warning, I did not go 
to bed for an hour, fearing I would be sent for. 
At one a. m. I was awakened by a ringing of the 
front door-bell and knocking. It was my father's 
butler, who told me the doctor had sent for me, 
as my father was very ill. I said to my house- 
keeper: 

" * I must go. I feel sure that my father is 
dying, because I heard the Woodd knocks, as I 
sat in my chair before going to bed.' 

" On my arrival my first question was: ' Is he 
still alive? ' for I believed he must have passed 
away at the time of the knocking. He died at 
eight-forty -five next morning." 
[18] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

Mr. Woodd's housekeeper corroborates this 
statement. As to the knocking heard at Hamp- 
stead, the daughter, Mrs. Winifred Dumbell, 
testifies : 

" On December 14, 1893, Thursday morning, 
hearing my father, Mr. Charles Woodd, was not 
well, I left Epsom, where I had been staying, for 
Hampstead, and found my father in bed and 
very weak, but I was in no way anxious about 
him, as I did not suppose him to be seriously ill. 
At eleven o'clock at night, being tired and finding 
I could not assist my mother or the nurse, I lay 
down in an adjoining room, leaving the door 
wide open, and fell asleep. 

" In a short time I was suddenly awakened by 
a loud rapping as if at the door. I jumped up 
and ran into the passage, thinking my mother 
had called me. I listened at the door of my father's 
room, but no one was moving. I lay down again 
and instantly fell asleep, when exactly the same 
thing occurred. I did not actually sleep again, 
and cannot say whether any sound made me get 
up the third time, but I went in search of the 
coctor and gathered that he was anxious about 
[19] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

my father, who was getting much weaker. We 
were all aroused, and about eight o'clock a. m. my 
father died. 

" I did not connect this rapping with the 
Woodd warning, as all was so sudden and unex- 
pected, but on mentioning it at breakfast the 
next morning to my brother, the Reverend Trevor 
Basil Woodd, he told me he also heard a similar 
warning in his rooms at Vauxhall Bridge Road 
about the same time." 

To mention only one other of the many in- 
stances that might be cited, the Knocking Ghost 
was again heard on June 3, 1895, just twenty-four 
hours before the death of Mr. Thomas Basil 
Woodd at Hampstead. Again, too, it was heard 
by more than one person and in more than one 
place, by Mr. Woodd's daughters, Fanny and 
Kate, and by his niece, Miss Ethel G. Woodd, 
who was at the time visiting friends in Yorkshire, 
and at first mistook the Knocking Ghost for 
somebody hammering nails into the wall of the 
next room. Oddly enough, this was also the way 
it sounded to Fanny Woodd, in London, as appears 
from the following statement signed by her: 
[201 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

"On June 3, 1895, at ten-thirty p.m., Fanny 
Woodd, staying with Mrs. Stoney, 83 Wharton 
Road, West Kensington, heard knocks, appar- 
ently from next door, as of nails being hammered 
in and pictures hung, which seemed so unlikely 
at that hour of night that the next morning she 
mentioned it to Mrs. Stoney, whose bedroom was 
just below hers, asking if she had heard it or 
could account for it." 

But Mrs. Stoney had heard nothing, and the 
next-door neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Taylor, rather 
tartly declared that: "There has been no put- 
ting up of pictures or knocking of any sort 
in this house for quite two years. We are 
also early risers, and are always in bed and 
asleep by ten p. m." That same day Miss 
Woodd rejoined her father and sister in Hamp- 
stead, and was astonished to hear that the latter 
had been awakened about half past ten the pre- 
vious night by loud knockings against the win- 
dow shutters. 

A few hours more and the mystery was solved 
by the startlingly sudden death of Mr. Woodd, 
from an attack of apoplexy. The Knocking 
[211 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Ghost of the Basil Woodds had lived up to its 
reputation. 

The giving of death warnings is by no means 
confined to family ghosts, as may be sufficiently 
indicated by relating an incident that happened 
in Canada some years ago, and that has always 
impressed me as one of the best ghost stories I 
have ever heard. It was told me by an actor in 
the strange little drama, and knowing as I do 
the persons concerned, I have not the slightest 
hesitation in vouching for its authenticity, in- 
credible though the reader may be inclined to 
regard it. 

In this instance the ghost was seen by a clergy- 
man, the Reverend John Langtry, who afterward 
became a prominent dignitary of the English 
Church in Canada. His home was in Toronto, 
but on the occasion of the ghostly visitation he 
was at the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Ruttan, who 
lived with their only child, a young girl, in 
a small town some fifty or sixty miles north of 
Toronto. Mr. Ruttan was another Church of 
England clergyman, and was a warm friend of 
Doctor Langtry 's. This time, however, the 
[22] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

latter had journeyed to see him simply on a mat- 
ter of diocesan business, and was anxious to 
complete it and get back to Toronto. 

To his disappointment he found that Mr. 
Ruttan had been called out of town, and would 
not be home until a late hour, possibly not until 
the following day. On the chance that he might 
return earlier than expected, Doctor Langtry 
accepted Mrs. Ruttan's invitation to spend the 
evening with her. 

As they were chatting together — she being so 
seated that her back was toward the door leading 
from the parlor, whereas Doctor Langtry 's posi- 
tion gave him a full view of the hall — she noticed 
that all at once he stopped in the middle of a 
sentence, leaned forward, and stared fixedly into 
the hall. She instantly turned her head, and 
followed the direction of his gaze, but could see 
nothing. 

" What is the matter, Doctor Langtry? " she 
asked. " What are you looking at? " 

" Nothing, nothing," he muttered, recovering 
himself with an effort. " I fancied for a mo- 
ment — " 

[231 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

He paused, then changed the conversation. 
But Mrs. Ruttan — from whom I got the story 
— saw that from time to time he glanced furtively 
into the hall, and finally half rose from his seat, 
his face white, his limbs trembling. 

" Doctor Langtry! " was her startled exclama- 
tion. " Are you ill? Whatever is the matter? " 

" Oh," he said shortly, " it is only a momentary 
faintness. I shall be all right presently. The 
fatigue of the journey must have unstrung me. I 
will trouble you to get me a glass of water, and 
then I think I will return to the hotel." 

He drank the water, and rose to go. But when 
near the front door, he turned to Mrs'. Ruttan, 
and said: 

" I don't believe I have asked after your 
daughter. I trust she is well? " 

" She is quite well, thank you. I put her to 
bed just before you came in." 

With his hand on the knob of the door, Doctor 
Langtry again paused irresolutely. 

" If it's not too much trouble," he asked, " I 
wish you would go up-stairs and make sure she 
is all right now." 

[24] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

Wondering at his request and at his manner, 
Mrs. Ruttan complied, and presently returned to 
report that the child was sleeping peacefully. 
Doctor Langtry bowed with an air of obvious 
relief, bade her good night, and left the house. 
But next day, after he had transacted his business, 
and was about to start for Toronto, he said to 
Mr. Ruttan, who had accompanied him to the 
train : 

" Ruttan, if your little girl should happen to 
fall ill while away from home, go to her at once, 
and take Mrs. Ruttan with you, even if you have 
no reason to feel that the illness is serious." 

Mr. Ruttan laughed. 

" Of course we would go to her. You may be 
sure of that. But why — " 

" Ask me no questions," said Doctor Langtry, 
" but bear my request in mind if the occasion 
should arise." 

Within a very short time the child, visiting an 
aunt in a near-by town, was taken ill, failed 
rapidly, and died almost before her parents, who 
had been hastily telegraphed for, could reach her 
bedside. Doctor Langtry 's warning immediately 
[25] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

recurred to them, and they wrote him, beseeching 
an explanation. 

" The reason I was anxious about your little 
girl," he then told them, " was because the night 
I was sitting with Mrs. Ruttan I saw an angel 
enter the hall, pass up the stairs, and return, 
carrying the child in its arms." 

But the kind of ghost most frequently seen is 
that which appears not before but immediately 
after, or coincidental with, a death. Its purpose 
is not to give warning of impending tragedy, but 
to convey the news of a tragedy already consum- 
mated. There are thousands of instances of this 
sort, so well authenticated as to compel credence. 
Not long ago an interesting case was reported to 
me by a gentleman living in Burlington, Vermont, 
the nephew of the lady — a Mrs. Hazard of New- 
port, Rhode Island — who saw the ghost. 

She was ill at the time, and under the care of 
a trained nurse. One afternoon, her physician 
having allowed her to sit up for a couple of hours, 
she was seated in a chair by the side of her bed, 
when the nurse noticed her open wide her eyes 
and turn her head as if following the movements 
[26] 






GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

of some one. Then she heard her say, in a tone of 
surprise : 

"Hello! Hello! There he goes! There he 
goes! " 

As far as the nurse could see, nobody was in 
the room with them. But, not wishing to alarm 
her patient, she merely asked: 

" Who is it, Mrs. Hazard? " 

" Chet Keech. But he doesn't see me. And 
now he's gone." 

Later in the day the nurse mentioned the inci- 
dent to Mrs. Hazard's daughter, asking her if 
she knew anybody by the name of Chet Keech. 

* Why, certainly I do," was the reply. " He 
is my cousin, and lives in Danielson, Connecti- 
cut." 

That day Chet Keech had died at Danielson, 
as a letter informed the Hazards next morning. 

Consider also this statement 1 by the Reverend 
C. C. McKechnie, a Scotch clergyman: 

" I was about ten years of age at the time, and 
had for several years been living with my grand- 

1 First published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research, vol. x, p. 240. 

[271 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

father, who was an elder in the Kirk of Scotland 
and in good circumstances. He was very much 
attached to me and often expressed his intention 
of having me educated for a minister in the Kirk. 
Suddenly, however, he was seized with an illness 
which in a couple of days proved mortal. 

" At the time of his death, and without my 
having any apprehension of his end, I happened 
to be at my father's house, about a mile off. I 
was leaning in a listless sort of way against the 
kitchen table, looking upward at the ceiling and 
thinking of nothing in particular, when my grand- 
father's face appeared to grow out of the ceiling, 
at first dim and indistinct, but becoming more 
and more complete until it seemed in every re- 
spect as full and perfect as I had ever seen it. 

" It looked down upon me, as I thought, with 
a wonderful expression of tenderness and affec- 
tion. Then it disappeared, not suddenly but 
gradually, its features fading and becoming dim 
and indistinct, until I saw nothing but the bare 
ceiling. I spoke at the time of what I saw to my 
mother, but she made no account of it, thinking, 
probably, it was nothing more than a boyish 
[281 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

vagary. But in about fifteen or twenty minutes 
after seeing the vision, a boy came running breath- 
less to my father's with the news that my grand- 
father had just died." 

Even more remarkable was the experience of 
an Illinois physician, Doctor J. S. W. Entwistle, 
a resident of one of the Chicago suburbs. Hurry- 
ing one morning to catch a train Doctor Entwistle 
saw approaching him an acquaintance, once well- 
to-do, who had ruined himself by drink. Glan- 
cing at him as they met, the physician noticed 
that his clothing was torn and his face bruised, 
and that there was a cut under one eye. He 
noticed, too, that the other kept looking steadily 
at him with a " woe-begone, God-forsaken ex- 
pression." Had he not been in such a hurry, he 
would have stopped and spoken to him, but as it 
was he passed him with a nod. 

At the station Doctor Entwistle met his 
brother-in-law, and said, while the train was 
drawing in: 

" Oh, by the way, I just saw Charlie M., and 
he was a sight. He must have been on a terrible 
tear." 

[29] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" I wonder what he's doing in town, anyway? " 
commented the brother-in-law. 

" I suppose he was going to see his wife." 

" Not a bit of it. She won't have him around." 

Then the subject was dropped, and nothing 
more was said about it until after they had reached 
Chicago. Both men, as it happened, had business 
at the Grand Pacific Hotel and went directly 
there from the train. They were met by a mutual 
friend, who had a copy of the Chicago Tribune in 
his hand. 

" Hello," he greeted them. " Did you know 
that Charlie M. is dead? Here is a notice in the 
paper, stating that his body is at the morgue. He 
was killed in a saloon fight. The paper hasn't 
got the name quite right, but from the description 
it's Charlie, sure enough." 

" But he can't be dead," said Doctor Entwistle, 
aghast, " for it was only a few minutes ago that 
I met him on the street in Englewood." 

Nevertheless, it turned out that Charlie M. was 
dead, and that his body had been taken to the 
morgue several hours before Doctor Entwistle 
thought he saw him in the Chicago suburb. 

[30] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

Moreover, on inquiry it was learned that the 
clothes worn by him when he was killed and the 
marks on his face " tallied in every particular 
with the description given by the doctor." 

Quite a similar experience occurred to Mr. 
Harry E. Reeves when he was choirmaster at 
St. Luke's Church in San Francisco. On a Friday, 
about three in the afternoon, Mr. Reeves was in 
an up-stairs room at his home. He had been 
working on some music. Wishing to rest for a 
few minutes, he threw himself on a lounge, but 
almost immediately an unaccountable impulse 
led him to get up again and open the door of his 
room. 

Standing at the head of the stairs he saw Edwin 
Russell, a member of his choir and a well-known 
San Francisco real estate broker. Mr. Russell 
had promised to call on him the following day to 
look over the music for Sunday, and Mr. Reeves's 
first thought was that he had come a day earlier 
than intended. He advanced to greet him, when, 
to his amazement and horror, the figure on the 
stairs turned as though to descend, and then 
faded into nothingness. 

[31] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

"My God! " gasped Reeves, and fell forward. 

A door below was hastily opened, and two 
women and a man ran to his aid. The women 
were his sister and niece, the man was a Mr. 
Sprague. They found Mr. Reeves seated on the 
stairs, his face white and covered with perspira- 
tion, his body trembling. 

"Uncle Harry!" cried the niece. ;i What in 
the world is the matter? " 

Mr. Reeves was in such a panic that he could 
hardly speak, but he managed to reply : 

" I have seen a ghost! " 

" Whose ghost? " inquired Mr. Sprague, with 
a skeptical smile. 

" The ghost of Edwin Russell." 

Instantly the smile left Mr. Sprague's face. 

" That's strange," said he, " that's very strange. 
For, as these ladies will tell you, I came to consult 
with you regarding the music for Mr. Russell's 
funeral. He had a stroke of apoplexy this morn- 
ing, and died a few hours ago." 1 

Sometimes ghosts of this type present them- 

1 Detailed reports of this case are published in the Proceed- 
ings of the Society for Psychical Research, yol. viii, pp. 214-218. 

[32] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

selves in such a way as to leave no doubt as to the 
fact and manner of the death of the person seen. 
As striking a case in point as has come to my 
knowledge is afforded by the singular experience 
of an old friend of mine, Edward Jackson, son 
of the late General Jackson, of Bideford, Eng- 
land. 

Born in India, Jackson was from his boyhood 
of a roving and adventurous disposition. He 
went in for all forms of athletics, more particu- 
larly boxing, cricket, and polo, and before he left 
India was one of the best known and most popu- 
lar men in the younger sporting set. 

He was still in his early twenties when he came 
to the United States, drifting West to go on a 
ranch in Wyoming. Tiring of this, though not 
of his fondness for adventure, he found work in a 
Lake Superior mine, where his quickly demon- 
strated ability to take care of himself in a rough- 
and-tumble encounter won him the position of 
superintendent over a gang of men whom it had 
hitherto been most difficult to superintend. 

As superintendent he was privileged to live by 
himself in a small, two-room cabin, somewhat 
[33] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

neater and more comfortable than the ordinary 
sleeping-shacks. It was in this cabin that he saw 
the ghost. 

" I had returned from the mine one evening, 
thoroughly tired out," he said, in telling me the 
story, " and sat down to rest for a few minutes 
before an open fire. While I was sitting there, 
half dozing, I felt a cold current of air, and looked 
up, thinking that somebody had thrown the door 
open. 

" The door was not open, but standing between 
me and it was the figure of a young man whom I 
instantly recognized as a boyhood chum in India. 
He was dressed in polo costume — we had often 
played the game together — but for a moment I 
forgot all about the incongruity between his dress 
and the rough, outlandish place in which I then 
saw him. I jumped up, exclaiming: 

" ' By Jove, Jack, I'm glad to see you. When 
did you get here? And how — - ' 

" I stopped. He had been standing with his 

profile toward me. Now he turned, facing me, 

and I saw that he was ghastly white, with a deep 

cut over one eye. Without a word he walked 

[34] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

past me, gazing at me solemnly, and disappeared 
in the inner room. 

" I don't think I am a coward, but I confess 
that for a moment I felt faint. Recovering, and 
believing that somebody must be playing me a 
trick, I made a dash after him. 

" There was no one there — and no way in 
which anybody could have got out unknown to 
me. 

" That night I wrote to my father, telling him 
what had happened. In his reply he informed me 
that my friend had been killed the same day that 
I saw him in my cabin on the shore of Lake Su- 
perior. He had been playing polo in far-away 
India, had been thrown from his horse, and had 
struck on his head, sustaining a wound similar 
to that I had seen in my vision." 

Of a somewhat different order, and at once 
recalling to mind the adventure of Miss Morison 
and Miss Lamont at the Petit Trianon, is an in- 
stance reported by an Englishwoman whose name 
must be withheld, for reasons that will become 
obvious. With her husband she had recently 
moved into a fine old mansion surrounded by a 
[351 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

splendid park, with a broad stretch of lawn be- 
tween the trees and the house. The place had 
for many years been the home of a family of 
ancient lineage. 

One night, shortly after eleven o'clock, when 
Mrs. M., as I shall call her, had gone to her bed- 
room, she thought she heard a moaning sound, 
and some one sobbing as though in great dis- 
tress. Mr. M. was away from home, the servants 
slept in another part of the house, and she was 
quite alone except for a friend who had come to 
keep her company during her husband's absence, 
and to whom she had said good night a few min- 
utes before. But being a courageous woman, she 
resolved to make an investigation and soon lo- 
cated the sound as coming from outdoors. Tip- 
toeing over to a window on the staircase landing, 
she raised the blind and cautiously peered out. 

Below, on the lawn, in the pale glow of the 
moon, she saw an amazing scene. A middle-aged 
man, stern of face and wearing a general's uni- 
form, was standing menacingly over a young girl, 
who, with hands clasped in anguish, was on her 
knees before him. At the sight of his hard, unre- 
[36] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

lenting expression, Mrs. M.'s one thought was 
not of fear for herself but pity for the unfortunate 
girl. 

" So much did I feel for her," she said, in nar- 
rating the affair, " that without a moment's 
hesitation I ran down the staircase to the door 
opening upon the lawn to beg her to come in and 
tell me her sorrow." 

When she reached the door, the figures of the 
soldier and the girl were still plainly visible on the 
lawn, and in precisely the same attitude. But 
at the sound of her voice they disappeared. 

" They did not vanish instantly," Mrs. M. ex- 
plained, " but more like a dissolving view — that 
is, gradually. And I did not leave the door until 
they had gone." 

Months afterwards, when calling with her 
husband at a neighboring house, she noticed on 
the wall the portrait of a distinguished-looking 
man in a military uniform. At once she recog- 
nized it. 

" That," she told her husband, in an undertone, 
" is a picture of the officer I saw on the lawn." 

Aloud she asked: " Whose portrait is that? " 
[371 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" Why," replied her host, " it is a portrait of 
my uncle, General Sir X. Y. He was born and 
died in the house you now occupy. But why do 
you ask? " 

When she had told the story, her host com- 
mented : 

" What you say is most singular. For it is an 
unhappy fact that Sir X. Y.'s youngest daugh- 
ter, a beautiful girl, brought disgrace upon the 
family, was disowned and driven from home by 
her father, and died broken-hearted." 1 

Not all ghosts, it is pleasant to know, bring 
notification of impending or already consum- 
mated tragedy. Many seem to exist solely for 
the purpose of giving a warning of trouble which 
may be averted by taking proper precautions, 
and sometimes they are a direct means of prevent- 
ing disaster. Thus, a guest at a Back Bay hotel 
/ in Boston was hurrying along a dimly lighted 
corridor to catch an elevator she thought she 
saw waiting for her, when unexpectedly the form 



1 Mrs. M.'s detailed account of this experience, with a cor- 
roboratory statement by Mr. M., is published in the Proceedings 
of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii, pp. 178-179. 

[381 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

of a man appeared at the entrance to the elevator. 
She was almost upon him, and stopped short in 
order to avoid a collision. At once he disappeared, 
and she then saw that although the door in the 
elevator shaft was wide open, the car was at the 
bottom of the shaft, into which she certainly 
would have fallen had not the phantasmal figure 
checked her onward rush. 

Or take this instance, reported by Lady Eard- 
ley: 

" One day I went to my bathroom, locked the 
door, undressed, and was just about to get into 
the bath, when I heard a voice say: 

" ' Unlock the door! ' 

" I was startled and looked around, but of 
course no one was there. I had stepped into the 
bath when I heard the voice twice more, saying: 

" ' Unlock the door! ' 

" On this I jumped out and did unlock the door, 
and then stepped into the bath again. As I got 
in I fainted away and fell down flat in the water. 
Fortunately, as I fell, I was just able to catch at 
a bell handle, which was attached to the wall 
above the tub. My pull brought the maid, who 
[39] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

found me, she said, lying with my head under 
water. She picked me up and carried me out. 
If the door had been locked I would certainly 
have been drowned." 

Still more impressive is an experience in the 
life of an Englishwoman named Mrs. Jean Gwynne 
Bettany. Her statement is corroborated by her 
father and mother. 1 

" On one occasion," she says, " I was walking 
in a country lane. I was reading geometry as 
I walked along, a subject little likely to produce 
fancies or morbid phenomena of any kind, when, 
in a moment, I saw a bedroom in my house known 
as the ' White Room,' and upon the floor lay my 
mother, to all appearance dead. The vision must 
have remained some minutes, during which time 
my real surroundings appeared to pale and die 
out; but as the vision faded, actual surroundings 
came back, at first dimly, and then clearly. 

" I could not doubt that what I had seen was 
real, so, instead of going home, I went at once to 
the house of our medical man, and he immedi- 
ately set out with me, on the way putting ques- 
1 See " Phantasms of the Living," vol. i, pp. 194-195. 

[40] 






GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

tions I could not answer, as my mother was to 
all appearance well when I left home. 

" I led the doctor straight to the * White Room,' 
where we found my mother actually lying as in 
my vision. This was true even to minute details. 
She had been seized suddenly by an attack at the 
heart, and would soon have breathed her last but 
for the doctor's timely advent." 

Mrs. Bettany's father, Mr. S. G. Gwynne, 
adds: 

" I distinctly remember being surprised by 
seeing my daughter, in company with the family 
doctor, outside the door of my residence; and I 
asked: ' Who is ill?' She replied: 'Mamma.' 
She led the way at once to the ' White Room,' 
where we found my wife lying in a swoon on the 
floor. It was when I asked when she had been 
taken ill that I found it must have been after 
my daughter had left the house. None of the 
servants in the house knew anything of the sud- 
den illness, which our doctor assured me would 
have been fatal had he not arrived when he did." 

In this last case, it should be noted the ghost 
seen was an apparition not of a dead person, but 
[411 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of a living one. This is most important, from the 
point of view of gaining insight into the nature 
and characteristics of ghosts. 

The investigators who, a matter of twenty-five 
or thirty years ago, began for the first time to 
inquire into the subject in a scientific way, early 
made the interesting discovery that phantasms 
of the living are seen quite as frequently as phan- 
tasms of the dead. Besides which, it was found 
that ghosts could be produced experimentally — 
that by a mere act of willing, one person could 
make another, sometimes miles distant, see a 
ghost. Many successful experiments of the kind, 
supported by ample corroborative evidence, are 
now on record. For example: 

Mr. B. F. Sinclair, at the time a resident of 
Lakewood, New Jersey, had occasion to go to 
New York to be absent several days. His wife 
was not feeling well when he left home, and he 
was greatly worried about her. 

" That night," to continue the narrative 1 in his 



1 1 quote from Mr. Sinclair's report to the Society for Psy- 
ical Research, and published by him in its Journal, vol. vii, 
p. 99. 

[42] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

own words, " before I went to bed, I thought 
I would try to find out, if possible, her condition. 
I had undressed, and was sitting on the edge of 
the bed, when I covered my face with my hands 
and willed myself in Lakewood at home, to see 
if I could see her. After a little, I seemed to be 
standing in her room before the bed, and saw 
her lying there, looking much better. I felt 
satisfied she was better, and so spent the week 
more comfortably regarding her condition. 

" On Saturday I went home. When she saw 
me, she remarked: 

" * I thought something had surely happened 
to you. I saw you standing in front of the bed 
the night you left, as plain as could be, and I have 
been worrying about you ever since.' 

" After explaining my effort to find out her 
condition, everything became clear to her. She 
had seen me when I was trying to see her. I 
thought at the time I was going to see her and 
make her see me." 

In at least one instance another experimenter, 
a German savant named Wesermann, performed 
the seemingly impossible feat of creating, by a 
[43] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

simple act of volition, a ghost not of himself but 
of a person who was dead. 

Herr Wesermann had been greatly troubled by 
the conduct of a friend, a young officer in the 
German army, and in the hope of reforming him, 
" willed " one evening that at eleven o'clock that 
night he should see in a dream an apparition of a 
lady in whom he had once been greatly interested, 
but who had been dead five years. 

It chanced that at eleven o'clock, instead of 
being in bed and asleep, Herr Wesermann's friend 
was chatting with a brother officer. Nevertheless, 
the apparition came to him at the hour appointed, 
and was seen, not only by him, but by his com- 
panion also. 

The door of his chamber seemed to open, and 
the ghost of his dead sweetheart walked in, 
" dressed in white, with black kerchief and bared 
head." Both officers started to their feet, and 
watched with bulging eyes while the ghost bowed 
gravely to them, turned, and without a word dis- 
appeared. 

They followed instantly, rushing into the cor- 
ridor, but saw only the sentry, who solemnly 
[441 






GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

assured them that nobody but themselves had 
entered or left the room. 1 

Facts like these naturally raised in the minds 
of many of the investigators a belief that quite 
possibly ghosts could be explained without re- 
sorting to the alternative of dogmatically denying 
their reality or regarding them as supernatural 
beings. This belief was strengthened by other 
facts brought to light in the course of experiments 
to determine the actuality of telepathy, or thought 
transference as it used to be called. 

It was discovered that, under certain favoring 
conditions, thoughts could indeed be transmitted 
from mind to mind without passing through the 
ordinary known channels of communication; and 
furthermore that thoughts thus transmitted were 
often apprehended, not as mere ideas, but in the 
form of auditory or visual hallucinations. 

Thus, if it were a question of " telepathing " 
the idea of a certain playing card, say the three 
of diamonds, the recipient, instead of simply 

x Herr Wesermann's experiments were reported by him 
in the Archiv fur den Thierischen Magnetismus, vol. vi, pp. 136- 
139. 

[45] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

getting the thought, " three of diamonds," might 
hear an hallucinatory voice saying to him, " three 
of diamonds," or might see three diamond-shaped 
objects floating before his eyes, the " ghosts " of 
three diamonds, so to speak. 

Of even greater significance was the discovery 
that it frequently happened also that instead of 
getting the message which the experimenter had 
consciously attempted to send, the recipient 
would get other ideas merely latent in the experi- 
menter's mind — ideas connected with his environ- 
ment, something he had been doing, etc. Or the 
recipient might get the right message several 
hours after the experiment had been made — 
receiving it, for example, in a dream. 

The obvious conclusion was that telepathy 
must be a function not of a person's ordinary 
consciousness, but of what psychologists call the 
subconsciousness, thus accounting for the diffi- 
culty of invariably obtaining satisfactory results 
in telepathic experiments. 

In the light of these discoveries, then, the be- 
lief has been gaining ground that ghosts — real 
ghosts — are at most nothing but mental images 
[46] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

impressed upon one mind by another through the 
subtle power of telepathy, and apprehended in 
the form of hallucinations of the various senses, 
just as any ordinary telepathic message may be 
apprehended. 

A person is stricken with a mortal illness, is 
fatally injured, or is passing through some other 
great crisis likely to terminate in death. Con- 
sciously or subconsciously, he thinks of loved ones 
far away, and is seized with a longing to get into 
touch with them once more, if only to notify 
them of the catastrophe threatening him. 

Across the intervening space, by what mechan- 
ism we as yet do not know, his thought wings its 
way to them, finds lodgment in their subconscious- 
ness, and thence, when favoring conditions arise 
— as in some moment of mental relaxation — is 
projected into their consciousness before, at the 
time of, or after the sender's death, and is seen, 
or heard, it may be, as a Phantom Drummer, a 
Knocking Ghost, or the phantasmal image of the 
sender himself. 

If, however, conditions are such as to prevent 
the message from emerging from the recipient's 
[47] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

subconsciousness into his field of conscious vision, 
it may, on occasion, as telepathic experiments 
have proved, be retransmitted to a third party, 
and by him be apprehended; as, for example, the 
Drummer of Cortachy, in the two instances cited 
above, was heard not by members of the Ogilvy 
family, but by comparative strangers. 

More than this, evidence has been accumulating 
to make it certain that in most cases not even 
telepathy is involved in the creation of ghosts, 
but that they are merely products of the seer's 
own subconsciousness. This was first clearly in- 
dicated by the results of an interesting " census 
of hallucinations," originated some years ago at 
the International Congress of Psychology, and 
simultaneously carried on — principally by mem- 
bers of the Society for Psychical Research — in 
the United States, England, France, Germany, 
and other countries. To thousands of persons 
the question was put: 

" Have you ever, when believing yourself to 
be completely awake, had a vivid impression of 
seeing or being touched by a living being or in- 
animate object, or of hearing a voice, which im- 
[481 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

pression, so far as you could discover, was not 
due to any external physical cause? " 

Of the 27,339 replies received to this question 1 
no fewer than 3,266 were in the affirmative. Many 
of those replying narrated true " ghost stories " 
similar to the ones given above; many testified 
to apparitions not of dead persons but of living 
friends; and in addition to this, the replies of 
many others brought out the interesting fact 
that there often were " ghosts " of inanimate 
objects — of hats and chairs and tables as well 
as of human beings. 

One respondent, Mrs. Savile Lumley, testified 
that, in broad daylight and while taking a calis- 
thenic lesson, she and another young woman 
" distinctly saw a chair over which we felt we 
must fall, and called out to each other to avoid it. 
But no chair was there." 

The Reverend G. Lyon Turner, professor of 
philosophy at the Lancashire Independent College, 
Manchester, England, woke up one morning to 



1 The detailed report of the results of this census will be 
found in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
vol. x, pp. 25-422. 

[49] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

find the ceiling of his room adorned with a huge 
chandelier of some ten arms, and the jets shining 
brightly through the ground-glass globes at the 
end of each arm. He knew that when he went to 
bed no chandelier had been there, and naturally 
feared that something was the matter with his 
eyesight. 

" I moved my head," he said, " to see whether 
the phantom moved, too. But no, it remained 
fixed; and the objects behind and beyond it 
became more or less completely visible as I 
moved, exactly as would have been the case had 
it been a real chandelier. So I woke my wife, 
but she saw nothing." 

Even more bizarre was the phantasm that 
appeared to another Englishman. Here is his 
own account of it: 

" I had just gone to bed, and was — at least, 
this was my impression at the time — quite 
awake. The door of my room was ajar, and there 
was a light in the passage which half-illumined 
my room. Suddenly I became aware of a series 
of slight taps on the passage outside. These taps 
were not sufficiently loud for a human footstep; 
[50] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

on the other hand, the volume of their sound was 
greater than that made by a walking-stick. I 
fully remember sitting up in bed and beholding 
two top-boots trot rapidly across the room and 
vanish into the opposite wall. The illusion was 
astonishingly vivid, and I can recall the details 
to this day. I have never had a waking dream 
since, and have never experienced ambulant top- 
boots except on this occasion." 

Whence the origin of these odd apparitions? 
The reply of modern science is that they were 
nothing more than the weird externalization of 
ideas latent in the minds of those perceiving them. 
Indeed, in the case of Mr. Turner there is absolute 
proof that this was the case, for that gentleman 
afterwards identified the phantom chandelier 
with one familiar to him as hanging from the 
ceiling of the college chapel in which he daily said 
prayers. Furthermore, there is proof — of which 
an abundance will be given in subsequent chapters 
— that often the ideas thus externalized relate 
to things once seen or heard but long since for- 
gotten; it may be to things seen or heard in a 
wholly unconscious, or, rather, subconscious, 
[51] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

way. And as with ideas of things, so with ideas 
of persons. 

In this connection, as illuminating vividly the 
problem of ghosts, may well be given an experi- 
ence narrated to me by Doctor Morton Prince, 
the eminent Boston psychopathologist, or medical 
psychologist. 

A patient of his came to him one morning in a 
condition of extreme nervousness, declaring that 
the previous night she had seen a ghost. " I woke 
up," said she, " and saw at the foot of my bed 
a young woman, who gradually faded away." 
She maintained that at no time had she seen any- 
body resembling the apparition, but in the minute 
description she gave, Doctor Prince at once rec- 
ognized a relative of his, with whom he remem- 
bered he had been talking in the hall when the 
patient last visited him. Saying nothing to her he 
quietly assembled a few photographs, and, before 
she departed, asked her to look them over. 

" Why," she said, picking one up, " here is my 
ghost! " 

" Yes," was Doctor Prince's reply, " and you 
saw your ghost in this house when you were here 

[521 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

only a few days ago. I was talking to her as you 
came in." 

" But," objected the patient, " I certainly did 
not see her, for I noticed somebody was with you, 
and I purposely turned away as I passed, lest I 
should seem rude." 

" All the same," said Doctor Prince, " you saw 
her without being conscious of it — saw her, as it 
were, out of the corner of your eye. One fleeting 
glance would be enough to give you the memory 
image that you mistook for a ghost." 

Undoubtedly Doctor Prince was right, and 
undoubtedly this dual law of subconscious per- 
ception and memory is enough to account for 
some of the most impressive ghosts cited in this 
chapter. Even the strange haunting of the Petit 
Trianon, as experienced by Miss Morison and Miss 
Lamont, may be said to find its explanation here. 

It is true that both Miss Morison and Miss 
Lamont profess to have known little about the 
history of the Petit Trianon previous to their 
visit to Versailles. But their detailed report of 
the haunting contains statements showing that, 
subconsciously at any rate, they must have pos- 
[531 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

sessed considerable knowledge of the place. Miss 
Morison admits that she had, as a girl, great en- 
thusiasm for Marie Antoinette, and had read not 
a little about her, including an article descriptive 
of her summer home; while Miss Lamont is a 
teacher of French history, and accordingly must 
have had rather more knowledge than the aver- 
age person regarding the life story of Queen Marie. 
Besides which, and most significant, there was 
published, just before they went to Versailles, 
an illustrated magazine article picturing a his- 
torical fete in the gardens of the Petit Trianon, 
with some account of its history. 

It is worth noting, too, that the two ladies were 
not haunted in exactly the same way, each of 
them seeing certain people and scenes that were 
not visible to the other. On the theory of a super- 
natural manifestation this would be hard to 
explain, but the difficulty vanishes if we recognize 
that the subconscious knowledge of the Trianon 
possessed by each must necessarily have differed. 

The problem remains to account for the fact, 
as distinct from the facts, of the haunting. Why 
should Miss Morison and Miss Lamont, among 
[541 






GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

all the thousands of visitors to the Petit Trianon, 
alone have had such an experience? To this, 
assuredly, there is no answer if one is going to 
stick to the old-fashioned notion of ghosts and 
attribute to them objective reality. But the 
answer is very simple on the modern scientific 
hypothesis. 

Miss Morison and Miss Lamont, the psycholo- 
gist would say, were haunted for the reason that, 
being of exceptionally romantic, impressionable 
temperaments, the ideas associated in their minds 
with the Petit Trianon, appealed to them with 
such " suggestive " force as to plunge them for 
the time being into a state of " psychical disso- 
ciation," during which their subconsciousness ob- 
tained complete control over the upper concious- 
ness, and flooded them with its latent memories 
of all that they had ever read or heard about the 
place and its historic residents. In other words, 
they were as two persons " dreaming awake." 

The same explanation would obviously apply 

to the ghostly vision seen on the lawn by Mrs. M. 

Nor do we need to go beyond the hypothesis of 

subconscious perception to account for the expe- 

[55] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

riences of Lady Eardley and the guest at the 
Boston hotel. In the latter case it is necessary to 
assume nothing more than that the lady who saw 
the apparition at the elevator entrance perceived 
her danger without being aware of it, and sub- 
consciously developed the hallucination that en- 
abled her to avoid it. 

As to the Eardley case, it is a well-established 
medical fact that some diseases, in their initial 
stages, cause organic changes too slight to be 
noticed by the sufferer's upper consciousness, but 
plainly perceptible to his subconsciousness which, 
through symbolical dreams or hallucinations, 
sometimes seeks to convey to the upper conscious- 
ness a warning that all is not well. 

I myself have had such an experience. A num- 
ber of years ago, beginning in the summer, I was 
troubled by a recurrent nightmare in which, al- 
though the details were not always the same, 
the central incident never varied. Always the 
nightmare ended with a phantom cat clawing 
viciously at my throat. I did not then know as 
much about dreams as I do now, so, beyond 
thinking vaguely that " it must mean some- 
[56] 



GHOSTS AND THEIR MEANING 

thing," I paid no attention to this repeated night- 
mare. 

At the end of six months I had an attack of 
grippe, necessitating treatment by a throat special- 
ist, who speedily discovered in my throat a growth 
of which I consciously had had no knowledge. 
With its removal the recurrent dream of the cat 
instantly ceased to trouble me. 

Lady Eardley's case was, doubtless, quite simi- 
lar, the only difference being that the subconscious 
warning was conveyed to her upper consciousness, 
not in dream, but as an auditory hallucination. 
And, in the somewhat parallel case of the ghost 
seen by Doctor Langtry, it seems a safe assump- 
tion that if the frightened clergyman had advised 
the child's father to place her under medical care 
at once, the subsequent fatality might have been 
averted. 

In the Langtry case, however, there must have 
been operative also a telepathic factor. And since 
the telepathic explanation of ghosts is still the 
subject of much controversy, it will be well, before 
proceeding farther, to state exactly what is 
known to-day regarding telepathy. 

[57] 



CHAPTER II 

WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

SOME years ago, when living near New York, 
I had a curious dream that made a deep im- 
pression on me. In this dream I seemed to be 
at a club or hotel, when a messenger boy entered 
and announced that I was wanted up-stairs. 
There I found in a large room a family with whom 
I had been intimate in my boyhood in Canada. 
I had heard nothing of them for years, and natu- 
rally was delighted to see them. But I was struck 
with the absence of one of the sons, Archie, who, 
as a youngster of about my own age, had been 
one of my closest friends. 

To my inquiry as to why he was not with 
them, I was told: "He's gone," a statement 
which, despite its vagueness, seemed in the dream 
a wholly adequate and satisfactory reply. When 
I awoke, however, with the dream details vividly 
in mind, I had a strong feeling that, as I said to 
[58] 






WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

my wife: " Something serious must have hap- 
pened to Archie Tisdale." The sequel proved 
that this feeling was amply justified. 

For it developed that, at about the time of my 
dream, he had died from an illness of which I 
knew nothing until, prompted by the dream, I 
made inquiries about him. 

Again, many years earlier, whiling away the 
time one summer evening in a green lane that led 
to the shore of a beautiful Canadian lake, I had 
an experience which similarly gave me food for 
thought. I had been leaning on a rail fence, 
taking in the glories of the fading sunset. It 
was one of those evenings and one of those scenes 
of which poets delight to sing, and as I gazed 
across the lake at the changing hues on the dis- 
tant hills, slowly turning from blue to gray as 
the twilight deepened, I gave myself up to the 
pleasurable day-dreaming so common in the ro- 
mantic age of youth. 

Suddenly I was roused by hearing my name 

called, in a tone so faint, albeit perfectly audible, 

that for a moment I could fancy the call came 

from beyond the lake. The next instant, how- 

[59] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

ever, I realized that it was what, with my larger 
psychological knowledge of to-day, I should term 
wholly subjective, coming from within me rather 
than from without; and at the same time I dis- 
tinctly got the impression that it was connected 
in some way with accident or illness befalling a 
young lady in whom I was then much interested 
— the young lady, in fact, who afterwards became 
my wife. 

It was in vain that I sought to dismiss this 
impression as a mere freak of the imagination. 
So insistent did it at last become that I returned 
to the house and hastily scribbled a note, stating 
what I had heard — or, rather, thought I had 
heard — and expressing the hope that all was 
well. 

My letter had to go to a distant city, and it 
was therefore several days before an answer 
could arrive. I well remember how, in the in- 
terval, I fretted and worried, But by return 
mail a reassuring reply reached me. Only, most 
strangely, the writer added that late in the after- 
noon of the day on which I heard the hallucina- 
tory call, she had been overcome by heat, and 
[601 






WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

was for some hours thought to be in a serious 
condition. 

Once again I heard the same weird inward call- 
ing of my name — this time at eleven o'clock on 
the night of a Fourth of July celebration, when I 
was lounging in a hammock on the bank of the 
Niagara River, watching the last of the fireworks 
on the American side. I was quite alone, as the 
friends with whom I was staying had retired an 
hour or more before; and, for that matter, it 
was not their custom to address me by my first 
name. Yet I heard myself called, faintly but 
distinctly, and seemingly from across the water, 
precisely as in my previous experience. 

As in that experience, also, I instinctively as- 
sociated the calling with my absent sweetheart, 
and wrote to her at once. Two days later, our 
letters crossing, I received word that on the 
night of the Fourth she had taken an overdose of 
headache powder, with consequences that might 
have been serious had not medical assistance 
been promptly obtained. 

But even more singular than any of the fore- 
going is a happening connected with an accident 

[611 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

that occurred to my wife while she was still a 
mere schoolgirl. 

With a party of young people she had gone on 
an outing to a Maine lake resort, and in the dusk 
of a pleasant evening started for a drive in an old- 
fashioned hay- wagon. There was no thought of 
danger, and the drive was thoroughly enjoyed 
by all until, coming down a long and rather 
steep hill, the breeching broke, and the horses 
ran away. At a sharp turn in the road, half-way 
down the hill, the drive came to a sudden and 
disastrous end with the overturning of the wagon. 

A number of its occupants were seriously hurt, 
my wife, with great presence of mind, saving her- 
self by jumping clear of the wagon just as it be- 
gan to go over. Even so, she did not escape 
uninjured, her face being badly cut. 

Now comes the curious part of the affair. Early 
the next morning a telegram from her mother in 
Boston was handed to her. It read: "Are you 
hurt or ill? Wire at once. Am writing." The 
letter which followed gave the amazing informa- 
tion that the previous night — that is, the night 
of the accident — the mother had had an unusu- 

[62] 






WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

ally vivid dream in which she saw her daughter 
driving in a carriage, thrown out of the carriage, 
and badly cut about the face. So realistic was 
the dream that on waking it frightened her, and 
led to the sending of the telegram. 

Obviously the question arises: Were these 
four strange experiences representative merely 
of extraordinary chance coincidences, or were 
they indicative of the action of some direct means 
of communication from mind to mind by other 
than the ordinary recognized channels of com- 
munication? 

Personally I am satisfied that chance alone will 
not suffice to account for them, and that they are 
veritable instances of the workings of a faculty 
latent in all mankind and operable in accordance 
with a true, if as yet little understood, law of 
nature — call it telepathy, thought transference, 
or what you will. 

And in saying this, I am well aware that, even 
if my belief is in agreement with that enter- 
tained by many eminent men of science — such 
as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Camille 
Flammarion, Charles Richet, Theodore Flournoy, 
[63] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Henri Morselli, Professor W. F. Barrett and the 
late William James — it is contrary to the opinion 
held by the great majority of scientists at the 
present day. Their view, to put it briefly, is that 
there is no such thing as telepathy; that chance 
coincidence, deliberate or unconscious falsifica- 
tion, and errors of memory are sufficient to ex- 
plain most instances of alleged telepathic com- 
munication; and that the remainder are reducible 
to the operation of more or less familiar principles 
in the psychology of the subconscious — notably 
the law of hyperesthesia, or unusual extension 
of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, etc. 

I am perfectly willing to admit that much 
which passes as telepathy may be thus reducible. 
For example, I am seated writing at the desk in 
my study. Unexpectedly there flashes into my 
mind an idea concerning a person of whom I 
have not thought for weeks or months. The next 
instant the doorbell rings, and presently the maid 
informs me that the very person of whom I have 
that moment been thinking has entered the 
house. 

This is a not infrequent experience, as most 
[64] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

of my readers will concede. So frequent is it 
that it is absurd to attempt to account for it 
on the hypothesis of chance coincidence. But 
neither would it be always safe to raise the theory 
of telepathy. For it might well happen that 
while I was seated intent on my work, with the 
study windows closed, my ear nevertheless caught 
the sound of footsteps coming down the street, 
or on my porch; that I subconsciously recog- 
nized in them my friend's walk, and that I con- 
sequently, though without knowing why, thought 
of him at that precise moment. This is assuredly 
a possible explanation — though I am far from 
conceding that in all such cases it is the only 
explanation properly applicable. 

So, likewise, one must be constantly on guard 
against over-readily accepting as evidences of 
telepathic action the feats of " mind reading " 
often undertaken by way of parlor amusement. 
Stage " mind reading " by professional enter- 
tainers may be safely left out of the reckoning, 
as undoubtedly based on methods of conscious 
trickery and deceit. But in a private gathering, 
where there can be no question of confederates 
[65] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

and deliberate signaling, surprising results are 
sometimes obtained in the finding of hidden 
objects, etc. On the surface this would seem 
explicable only on a telepathic basis, yet in 
reality it is commonly brought about by " muscle 
reading " rather than by true " mind reading." 

Experiment has shown that the effort to con- 
centrate thought on a given matter — a name 
or an object — tends to produce some form of 
muscular activity, either subconscious whispering 
of the name thought of, or subconscious move- 
ment in the direction of the object. If, as is the 
rule, the spectators are supposed to keep their 
minds fixed intently on the name or object they 
have selected for the " test," some of them are 
apt to give these involuntary muscular hints, 
which the performer will accept and act upon, 
it may be without being clearly conscious of the 
source of his information. 

Still it must be added that experiments in the 
" willing game " have been carried out under 
conditions and with results indicating that occa- 
sionally, at all events, successes are achieved 
without any such subconscious guidance. Not 
[66] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

so very long ago some interesting and most 
striking experiments of this sort were described 
to me by Professor J. H. Hyslop. 

" The subject of my experiments," said he, 
" was a young woman of good family, who was 
credited with having exceptional ability in divi- 
ning the thoughts and wishes of others. It was 
arranged that I should investigate her powers, 
and accordingly for a period of some weeks I had 
frequent sittings with her, in the presence of a 
few interested and trustworthy friends. 

" The plan followed in every experiment was 
this: The young woman having left the room, 
I mentally selected some more or less complicated 
action for her to perform upon her return. I then 
wrote down on a slip of paper what I wished her 
to do, showed it to the others, and concealed it 
in a book, which did not leave my hand until 
after the completion of the experiment. From 
first to last not a word was spoken by any one, 
so as to guard against any possible hyperesthesia 
of hearing on her part. 

" The young woman was then called back, and 
almost invariably proceeded to execute the com- 
[67] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

mands mentally given her. She did this so 
promptly that I cannot conceive how she could 
possibly have got any unconscious hints from 
those present, and conscious signaling was out 
of the question. 

" For instance, I once wrote on my paper an 
order for her to pick out of a vase a bunch of 
keys I had hidden there, cross the room with the 
keys, and place them on the mantel-piece. She 
entered, stood for but a moment with her eyes 
closed, and then, swiftly passing to the vase, 
which was on the floor, picked up the keys, 
turned, and deposited them on the mantel-piece 
as I had mentally suggested. It was all done so 
quickly and spontaneously that to my mind it 
afforded strong evidential proof of true thought 
transference. 

" She was not always successful, but some of 
her failures were quite as instructive as her suc- 
cesses. On three occasions she executed, not 
the commands I had written on the paper, but 
commands I had thought of writing but for one 
reason or another had abandoned. No one in 
the room excepting myself knew of these previous 
[681 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

intentions, so she could have derived her knowl- 
edge of them from the involuntary movements of 
no one excepting me; and if it had actually been 
a matter of subconscious guidance, it is obvious 
that my muscular indications would have related 
not to the abandoned commands but to the com- 
mands I actually wished her to carry out. 

" All things considered, my experiments with 
this young woman satisfy me that the hypothesis 
of subconscious guidance is not always properly 
applicable, even when the s mind reader is in a 
position to see or hear the persons testing him." 

Assuming, however, for the sake of argument, 
that Professor Hy slop's conclusion is erroneous, 
and that the involuntary movement theory does 
always suffice as an explanatory hypothesis when 
experimenter and subject are in the same rooms, 
it becomes manifestly and hopelessly inadequate 
when applied to explain the transmission of ideas 
between persons a considerable distance apart. 
Yet what I consider abundant proof has been 
experimentally obtained that such transmission 
may, and sometimes does, take place — occasion- 
ally in most dramatic form. 

[691 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Take, for example, the experience of a French 
lady, Mme. Clarence de Vaux-Royer, who, feel- 
ing uneasy one day about a friend who was then 
living in the United States, thought she would 
cable to him. Unfortunately it was Sunday, and 
her maid found the cable office closed. Mme. de 
Vaux-Royer then decided to attempt a tele- 
pathic experiment, and, knowing that her friend 
was mourning the death of his mother and of a 
favorite sister, decided to try and impress him 
with an idea that they were near him and would 
comfort him in any trial he might be under- 
going. She told her maid of her intention, and 
asked the maid to note the date, so as to be 
able to give corroborative evidence if the experi- 
ment succeeded. 

This was on November 7. Ten days later the 
American mail brought to Mme. de Vaux-Royer 
a letter from her absent friend, who, after re- 
ferring to some matters of wholly private inter- 
est, stated: 

" Last night (the 7th), while I was praying, I 
saw, hovering above my head, some gold circles, 
which gradually floated away until I could no 
[701 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

longer see them. At the same time I seemed to 
hear some one calling to me : * Mother ! Mother ! 
Sister Minnie! ' Then the circles floated back, 
approaching until they almost touched my head. 
Oh, how much comfort I felt! How they inspired 
me with sentiments of goodness and happiness! " 

From this it is manifestly only a step to the 
experimental production of telepathic phantasms 
of the human form, as in the two instances given 
in the previous chapter (the Wesermann and 
Sinclair experiments), and in numerous other 
instances, of which one or two additional may 
well be narrated here. In one, a Harvard pro- 
fessor, an acquaintance of Professor James, on 
whose authority I quote the story, having heard 
of the possibility of telepathic hallucinations, 
determined one evening that he would try to 
make an apparition of himself appear to a friend, 
a young lady who lived half a mile from his 
home. He did not mention his intention to her 
or to anybody else. The next day he received a 
letter, in which she said: 

" Last night about ten o'clock I was in the 
dining-room at supper with B. Suddenly I 
[711 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

thought I saw you looking in through the crack 
of the door at the end of the room, toward which 
I was looking. I said to B.: 'There is Blank, 
looking through the crack of the door! ' B., whose 
back was toward the door, said: 6 He can't be 
there. He would come right in/ However, I 
got up and looked in the other room, but there 
was nobody there. Now, what were you doing 
last night, at that time? " 

At that precise moment, as he told Professor 
James, " Blank " had been at home, sitting alone 
in his room, and trying " whether I could project 
my astral body to the presence of A." 

Possibly had the young lady been alone, and 
not actively engaged, she might have had a 
more definite view of the phantasm of her absent 
friend, for experience has shown that solitude 
and quiet are favoring conditions for the percep- 
tion of telepathic apparitions. In nearly every 
instance reported to the Society for Psychical 
Research the percipient of the phantasm is alone 
and in a more or less passive, quiescent frame 
of mind. Such a condition usually obtains 
immediately before or immediately after sleep, 

[72] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

and it is then that experimental apparitions are 
seen most plainly. Though occasionally they 
are vividly experienced when the percipient is 
in a state of the most active consciousness, as 
in the following case, reported by the agent — 
that is, the person sending the telepathic mes- 
sage — and confirmed by the percipient, an 
English clergyman now dead, the Reverend W. 
Stainton Moses. 

" One evening," runs the agent's account, " I 
resolved to try to appear to Z., at some miles 
distance. I did not inform him beforehand of 
the intended experiment; but retired to rest 
shortly before midnight with thoughts intently 
fixed on Z., with whose rooms and surroundings, 
however, I was quite unacquainted. I soon fell 
asleep, and awoke next morning unconscious of 
anything having taken place. On seeing Z. a 
few days afterward, I inquired: 

Did anything happen at your rooms on 
Saturday night? ' 

Yes,' replied he, * a great deal happened. 
I had been sitting over the fire with M., smoking 
and chatting. About twelve-thirty he rose to 

[73] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

leave, and I let him out myself. I returned to 
the fire to finish my pipe, when I saw you sitting 
in the chair just vacated by him. 

" * I looked intently at you, and then took up 
a newspaper to assure myself I was not dreaming, 
but on laying it down I saw you still there. While 
I gazed without speaking, you faded away.' ' 

Of course in the case of all single experiments 
like these, 1 the skeptically inclined might plau- 
sibly fall back on the theory of chance coincidence. 
But it is impossible seriously to entertain this 
hypothesis in cases where experiments in the 
telepathic transmission of ideas have been carried 
on repeatedly and with an astonishing measure 
of success. 

To mention only the most notable experi- 
ments of this systematic kind, I would call at- 
tention to the results obtained by two sets of 
English investigators, the first comprising two 
ladies named Clarissa Miles and Hermione Rams- 
den, the second two gentlemen, F. R. Burt and 
F. L. Usher. As I see it, indeed, the Miles- 

1 Accounts of other experiments of the same type will be 
found in my book, " The Riddle of Personality," pp. 140-142. 

[741 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

Ramsden and Burt-Usher experiments have the 
additional interest that they not only make clear 
some of the fundamental laws of genuine thought 
transference, but also show just why it is that 
we can never hope to obtain such absolute con- 
trol of the telepathic process as to be able to send 
mental messages from one to another with the 
same ease and certainty as we now send ordinary 
telegrams and marconigrams. 

This inability of control has long been a stock 
objection against belief in telepathy, especially 
among the scientifically trained. " Not until 
we can repeat at will, and with invariable success, 
the experiment of direct transference of thought, 
will we accept telepathy as established," say these 
scientific skeptics. " We know that if, in our 
chemical and physical laboratories, we bring 
such and such elements together, such and such 
action will always follow. We must be able to 
do as much with telepathy before we will accept 
it." But the Miles-Ramsden and Burt-Usher 
experiments show that there are excellent reasons 
for affirming that telepathy is a fact, and that 
nevertheless its processes cannot be governed 

[751 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

with the certitude possible in the case of chemical 
and physical processes. There are factors in- 
volved which elude, and must always elude, the 
directive control of the experimenter. 

In the experiments by the Misses Miles and 
Ramsden it was arranged that, at a stated hour 
of a stated evening in each week, Miss Ramsden 
— who acted throughout as the percipient, or 
receiver of the telepathic messages — was to 
remain for a few minutes in a condition of com- 
plete passivity, and immediately afterwards was 
to note on a post-card whatever ideas came into 
her mind during that time. The post-card was 
then to be mailed to Miss Miles, who, for her 
part, was to think of Miss Ramsden at intervals 
during the day agreed on, and in the evening 
was to make a post-card entry — to be mailed to 
her friend forthwith — of the idea or ideas she 
had tried to convey to her telepathically. Thus, 
in the event of achieving any degree of success, 
they would have a perfect documentary record 
to substantiate their claims. 

As to the distance separating them, it ranged 
from a few score to several hundred miles. They 

[76] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

made, in fact, three distinct series of experiments, 
with about a year's interval between each series. 
During the first they were at their homes, Miss 
Miles in London, Miss Ramsden in Buckingham- 
shire. During the second, Miss Ramsden was 
in Inverness, in northern Scotland, and Miss 
Miles visiting friends in various parts of England. 
The third series was carried on while Miss Miles 
was making a tour of the beautiful Ardennes 
region of France and Belgium, Miss Ramsden 
at the same time being again in the Scottish 
Highlands. 

Thus there was a progressive increase in the 
distance between them for each series, but this 
seems to have made no difference in the result. 
In each, as the attested record shows, Miss 
Ramsden succeeded in getting, completely or in 
part, no fewer than two out of every five of the 
messages her co-experimenter tried to " tele- 
path " to her. Such a proportion is clearly too 
high to be explained away on the theory of 
chance coincidence, and this theory is rendered 
still more untenable by the attendant circum- 
stances which the record reveals. 
[77] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

On one occasion Miss Miles, who is an artist, 
had been busy in the afternoon painting a model's 
hands. She thought of this when evening came, 
and determined to endeavor to impress Miss 
Ramsden with the idea " hands." In her post- 
card, written at seven o'clock the same evening, 
Miss Ramsden stated that of several ideas which 
had come into her mind at the experiment-hour 
the " most vivid " was " a little black hand, quite 
small, much smaller than a child's, well formed, 
and the fingers straight. This was the chief 
thing." 

Similarly, having noticed at a meeting in Lon- 
don a curious pair of spectacles worn by a gentle- 
man seated near her, Miss Miles, on returning 
home in the early evening, wrote down the word 
" spectacles," with the idea of " telepathing " 
it to Miss Ramsden. The latter 's post-card entry 
for that evening noted that " spectacles " was 
" the only idea that came to me after waiting a 
long time." . 

Again, while on a sketching expedition to an 
English village, Miss Miles was much amused 
by an adventure with a large white pig. She 

[781 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

selected this pig as the subject of her next tele- 
pathic communication, the result of which Miss 
Ramsden, writing as almost always on the night 
of the experiment, thus reported: 

" You were out of doors rather late, a cold, raw 
evening, near a railway station; there was a pig 
with a long snout, and some village children. 
It was getting dark." 

On the other hand, in several instances Miss 
Ramsden's impressions contained much which 
Miss Miles had not consciously sought to convey 
to her. And this brings us to what is unquestion- 
ably the most important feature of the experi- 
ments. 

As was said, about two out of every five mes- 
sages were correctly received, in whole or in part. 
But it frequently happened in the case of the 
seeming failures, that while Miss Ramsden did not 
get the ideas which Miss Miles was endeavoring 
to send to her, she did get ideas relating to people, 
things and events much in Miss Miles's mind at 
that moment, or which had been more or less 
in her mind during the day of the experiment. 

To illustrate, Miss Miles once tried to make 
[791 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Miss Ramsden think of " pussies, or cats." 
What Miss Ramsden did think of was " a manu- 
script, pinned by a patent fastener in one cor- 
ner." And, oddly enough, Miss Miles had spent 
a good part of that afternoon reading to a friend 
from a manuscript " fastened together," as the 
friend has testified, " with a patent fastener." 
Similarly, during Miss Miles 's visit to the English 
village above mentioned, Miss Ramsden's report 
for one experiment ran: 

" First I saw dimly a house, but I think that 
you wish me to see a little girl with brown hair 
down her back, tied with a ribbon in the usual 
way. She is sitting at a table with her back 
turned and seems very busy indeed. I think she 
is cutting out scraps with a pair of scissors. She 
has on a white pinafore, and I should guess her 
age to be between eight and twelve." 

Miss Miles had not been trying to make Miss 
Ramsden think of anything of the sort. But the 
description fitted perfectly her landlady's little 
daughter, of whom the mother, Mrs. Laura Love- 
grove, says : 

" I have a little girl aged eleven, with brown 
[801 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

hair, tied with a ribbon in the usual way. She 
wears a pinafore, and, being ill, often amuses 
herself cutting out scraps." 

Another time, when the hour for the experi- 
ment arrived, Miss Miles forgot all about it, 
being busy writing letters to some friends. In 
particular she was absorbed in framing an answer 
to an important letter from a Polish artist, 
written in a peculiar script. Miss Ramsden's re- 
port for that evening was: 

" I felt that you were not thinking of me, but 
were reading a letter in a sort of half-German 
writing. The letters have very long tails to 
them. Is there any truth in that? " 1 

Significant also is the fact that precisely the 
same sort of thing occurred in the more recent ex- 
periments between Mr. Burt and Mr. Usher, who, 
like Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden, conducted 
their investigations in a careful, methodical, con- 
scientious way, and over a long period of time. 

1 The experiments of the Misses Miles and Ramsden are 
reported in detail in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research, vol. xxi, and in the Journal of the Society for Psychical 
Research, vol. viii. The report of the Burt-Usher experiments 
appears in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, January and Feb- 
ruary, 1910. 

[81] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Mr. Usher, like Miss Miles, invariably acted 
as the sender of the telepathic communications, 
while Mr. Burt was the percipient. From first 
to last the latter remained in London, while 
Mr. Usher was part of the time in Bristol, more 
than one hundred miles from London, and part 
of the time in the Austrian city of Prague, a 
thousand miles away. On each experiment- 
evening it was Mr. Usher's practice, at the hour 
previously agreed upon, to sit alone in a dimly 
lighted room, draw some design on a piece of 
paper, and remain for fifteen minutes thinking 
intently of the design and " willing " to transmit 
it to Mr. Burt, who, at the same hour, would 
be seated in a darkened room in London, noting 
the images that passed before his mind's eye, 
and, at the expiration of fifteen minutes, setting 
down on paper the one or two that had seemed 
to him most vivid. 

Nearly fifty experiments were thus made, with 
results defying any explanation by the theory 
of chance coincidence. And, as in the Miles- 
Ramsden experiments — for the matter of that, 
as also in Professor Hyslop's experiments — it 
[821 






WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

at times happened that when Mr. Burt totally 
failed to draw a design corresponding with that 
which Mr. Usher had drawn, Mr. Burt's design 
did correspond with images demonstrably in Mr. 
Usher's mind at or immediately before the 
moment of the experiment. 

Thus, one evening in Prague Mr. Usher tried 
to make Mr. Burt get the impression of an oblong 
composed of numerous small dots. Instead Mr. 
Burt saw and designed a peculiar plume-like 
ornamentation, which Mr. Usher instantly recog- 
nized as a picture of part of the unusual carving 
on the table at which he had been seated. On 
another occasion — the eighteenth experiment — 
Mr. Usher sought to transmit a crude design of a 
flower in a pot. What Mr. Burt actually drew 
was an excellent representation of a lighted ciga- 
rette with the smoke curling away from it. 

" And," says Mr. Usher, " the evening that he 
drew this was the first evening I had smoked a 
cigarette while experimenting with him." 

Such incidents, with those cited in connection 
with the experiments of Professor Hyslop and 
the Misses Miles and Ramsden, in my opinion 
[831 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

go to show exactly why it is that one cannot hope 
to obtain unfailing control over the process of 
telepathy. For they indicate that at bottom 
genuine thought transference depends not so 
much on conscious willing as on subconscious 
feeling. It is not necessarily the things about 
which one thinks most strongly, but rather things 
which are tinged with some emotional coloring, 
that are most likely to become subjects of tele- 
pathic communication. 

And these experiments further indicate that, on 
the receiver's part also, the mechanism involved 
in the transmission of telepathic messages be- 
longs rather to the subconscious than to the 
conscious portion of the mind. In order to allow 
the emergence of the transmitted ideas into the 
field of conscious knowledge, there seems to be 
always necessary some form of psychical " dis- 
sociation " — as in a trance, dream, reverie, or 
moment of absentmindedness. Such states of 
dissociation are not always easy to bring about 
voluntarily; and when they are brought about, 
whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it by no 
means follows that ideas received telepathically 

[841 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

will forthwith and rapidly rise above the threshold 
of consciousness. 

For, as recent psychological experiment and 
observation have shown, in dissociated states 
the tendency is for the emergence chiefly of 
ideas which, through their emotional associations, 
are of deep personal significance — as when we 
dream of persons or things associated with events 
that once affected us profoundly. Every one of 
us has subconscious reminiscences of this sort, 
and with these personal subconscious reminis- 
cences any ideas which have been transmitted 
telepathically have of necessity to compete for 
emergence. They may get through or they may 
not; whether they will get through apparently 
depends in large measure on the degree of their 
own emotional intensity. 

Hence it is that that scientist is doomed to 
perpetual unbelief who boasts that he will never 
place credence in telepathy until he can play 
with it as he plays with the chemicals in his test 
tubes. One cannot handle feelings as one can 
handle a chemical compound, nor can one manip- 
ulate at will the subconscious as though it were 
[85] 




ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

a physical substance. Hence, too, the case for 
telepathy must always rest less on experimental 
evidence — strong though the Miles-Ramsden 
and Burt-Usher experiments demonstrate that 
this sometimes is — than on well-authenticated 
instances of spontaneous occurrence, which have 
been recorded in ever-increasing volume since 
systematic investigation of the subject was first 
undertaken a scant quarter of a century ago. 

In such instances, the records further show, 
one of the commonest forms in which the tele- 
pathic message is received is that of an auditory 
hallucination, as in the " voice " heard by me on 
the shore of the Canadian lake and on the bank 
of Niagara River. When there is connected with 
the sending of the message some supreme crisis 
in the career of the sender — the crisis, it may be, 
of the moment of death — the auditory hallu- 
cination is sometimes of such a nature as to 
make its dire meaning almost self-evident. In 
this respect I know of nothing more striking 
than a strange case reported, with ample cor- 
roborative evidence, to the Society for Psychical 
Research. 

[86] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

The narrator, a well-to-do Englishman, was 
living at the time in a country house. It was 
early spring, and on the night of his telepathic 
experience there had been a slight snowfall, just 
sufficient to make the ground white. After 
dinner he spent the evening writing until ten 
o'clock, when, to continue the story in his own 
words : 

" I got up and left the room, taking a lamp 
from the hall table, and placing it on a small table 
standing in a recess of the window in the break- 
fast-room. The curtains were not drawn across 
the window. I had just taken down from the 
nearest bookcase a volume of ' Macgillivray's 
British Birds ' for reference, and was in the act 
of reading the passage, the book held close to 
the lamp, and my shoulder touching the window 
shutter, and in a position when almost the slight- 
est sound would be heard, when I distinctly heard 
the front gate opened and shut again with a clap, 
and footsteps advancing at a run up the drive; 
when opposite the window the steps changed 
from sharp and distinct on gravel to dull and 
less clear on the grass-slip below the window, 
[87] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

and at the same time I was conscious that some 
one or something stood close to me outside, only 
the thin shutter and a sheet of glass dividing 
us. 

" I could hear the quick, panting, labored 
breathing of the messenger, or whatever it was, 
as if trying to recover breath before speaking. 
Had he been attracted by the light through the 
shutter? Suddenly, like a gunshot, inside, out- 
side, and all around, there broke out the most 
appalling shriek — a prolonged wail of horror, 
which seemed to freeze the blood. It was not a 
single shriek, but more prolonged, commencing 
in a high key, and then less and less, wailing 
away toward the north, and becoming weaker 
and weaker as it receded in sobbing pulsations 
of intense agony. 

" Of my fright and horror I can say nothing — 
increased tenfold when I walked into the dining- 
room and found my wife sitting quietly at her 
work close to the window, in the same line and 
distant only ten or twelve feet from the corre- 
sponding window in the breakfast-room. She 
had heard nothing. I could see that at once; 
[88] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

and from the position in which she was sitting, 
I knew she could not have failed to hear any 
noise outside and any footsteps on the ground. 
Perceiving I was alarmed about something, she 
asked : 

" ' What is the matter? ' 

" * Only some one outside,' I said. 
* Then, why do you not go out and see: 
You always do when you hear any unusual 
noise/ 

■ There is something queer and dreadful 
about this noise,' I replied. ' I dare not face it.' ' 

Nothing more was heard, and early next morn- 
ing he made a careful search in the grounds 
around the house, but not a footprint was to be 
seen in the snow, which had ceased falling long 
before the occurrence of the wailing cry. A little 
later in the day, however, word arrived that at 
ten o'clock the previous night one of his tenants, 
who lived half a mile distant and with whom he 
had spent the afternoon, had committed suicide 
by drinking prussic acid. 

He had gone up to his bedroom, his groom 
testified at the inquest, had mixed the poison in 
[89] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

a tumbler of water, drank it off, and, with a terrible 
scream, fell dead on the floor. 

Fortunately, telepathic hallucinations do not 
usually come with such intensity or in such an 
alarming form. Often they are mere vague im- 
pressions that something unpleasant or disas- 
trous is occurring to a relative or friend, and, as 
in the case of self-originating hallucinations like 
that reported by Lady Eardley, they occasionally 
impel to action that averts disaster. It was thus, 
to give a single instance, in an experience re- 
ported 1 by William Blakeway, a Staffordshire 
Englishman : 

" I was in my usual place at chapel one Sunday 
afternoon, when all at once I thought I must go 
home. Seemingly against my will, I took my 
hat. When reaching the chapel gates I felt an 
impulse that I must hasten home as quick as 
possible, and I ran with all my might without 
stopping to take breath. Meeting a friend who 
asked why I hurried so, I passed him almost with- 
out notice. 

" When I reached home I found the house full 
1 In " Phantasms of the Living," vol. ii, pp. 377-378. 

[90] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

of smoke, and my little boy, three years old, all 
on fire, alone in the house. I at once tore the 
burning clothes from off him, and was just in 
time to save his life. It has always been a mystery 
to me, as no person whispered a word to me, and 
no one knew anything about the fire till after 
I made the alarm at home, which was more than 
a quarter of a mile from the chapel." 

Here the wholly subconscious nature of the 
phenomenon, on the percipient's part at all 
events, is plainly evident. It is even more evi- 
dent in all cases where, as frequently occurs, the 
telepathic message is received in a dream like 
that which was recorded in the opening para- 
graphs of this chapter. As is to be expected, too, 
in telepathic dreams we often find an element of 
symbolism. The news of illness, of accident, of 
death, or whatever it may be, is not conveyed 
directly, but indirectly, amid a mass of more or 
less relevant details of dream imagery. 

A couple of years ago I received a letter from a 
lady living in Brooklyn, describing an experience 
that admirably illustrates this point. Her dream, 
however, was of such an intimate character that 

[911 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

the names of the persons and places must be 
suppressed. Five years ago, this lady writes, her 
daughter became interested in a young man, 
Mr. V., whose suit, however, the mother dis- 
couraged. Afterwards her daughter met, fell in 
love with, and was happily married to a physi- 
cian in the Government service. She soon went 
abroad with her husband, to a remote and isolated 
post. My informant continues: 

" We could not hear from them all winter 
because they were ice-bound, but my thoughts 
of them were always most delightful, for their 
last letters were bubbling over with happiness, 
and I was lovingly busy getting things ready for 
them. 

" Mr. V. had almost passed from my mind, 
when one morning, in the middle of June, I 
arose, took a bath, and, having a half-hour to 
spare, went back to bed again, falling into a 
deep sleep. 

" Suddenly Mr. V. appeared to me in one of 
my lower rooms. It seemed to be breakfast 
time, and I invited him to have some. He ac- 
cepted, and we sat together for some time, but 
[921 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

I do not remember any of our conversation. 
Suddenly he arose, faced me, and, looking straight 
into my eyes, said emphatically: 

" i Now she is mine! Nothing you can do will 
ever separate us again! This time she will belong 
to me! ' 

" I awoke with a start, much frightened. Then, 
realizing the situation, I thanked Heaven she 
was safely married, and promptly put the dream 
from me. This was about eight o'clock. At ten 
a despatch reached me saying that my daughter's 
husband had died, from the result of a boating 
accident two weeks before." 

Or, when apprehended in dream, the telepathic 
message may be so distorted that its true meaning 
cannot possibly be recognized immediately. A 
characteristic case of this kind occurred at the 
time of President Lincoln's assassination, though 
it is only recently that it was for the first time 
reported in detail by Mrs. E. H. Hughes, daughter 
of the San Francisco architect, S. C. Bugbee. 
It should be explained that before removing to 
California from Massachusetts in 1863, the Bug- 
bees were well acquainted with the Booth family, 

[93] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

and that John Wilkes Booth was an especial 
favorite of Mrs. Bugbee's. Says Mrs. Hughes, 
in her report to the American Institute for Scien- 
tific Research: * 

" One night my mother woke my father sud- 
denly, saying : ' Oh, Charles ! I have had such 
a terrible dream! I dreamed that John Wilkes 
Booth shot me! It seemed that he sent me seats 
for a private box in a theater, and I took some 
young ladies with me. Between the acts he came 
to me, and asked me how I liked the play. I 
exclaimed, " Why, John Booth! I am surprised 
that you could put such a questionable play 
upon the stage. I am mortified to think that 
I have brought young ladies to see it." At that 
he raised a pistol, and shot me in the back of the 
neck. It seems as if I felt a pain there now.' 
After a while my mother fell asleep, and dreamed 
the same thing a second time. 

" The next morning came the terrible news 
which plunged the nation into grief and mourning. 
Almost at the hour of my mother's dream, Presi- 

1 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. 
iv, pp. 210-217. 

[94] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

dent Lincoln was assassinated; shot, in the back 
of the neck, in a private box at a theater, by 
John Wilkes Booth." 

On the other hand, there may be no sym- 
bolism or distortion, the dream corresponding 
so realistically with the event as to make its 
significance manifest. To give an illustration, 
Mrs. Morris Griffith, an Englishwoman, re- 
ports : 

" On the night of Saturday, the eleventh of 
March, I awoke in much alarm, having seen my 
eldest son, then at St. Paul de Loanda on the 
southwest coast of Africa, looking dreadfully ill 
and emaciated, and I heard his voice distinctly 
calling to me. I was so disturbed I could not 
sleep again, but every time I closed my eyes the 
appearance recurred, and his voice sounded dis- 
tinctly, calling me ' Mamma ! ' I felt greatly 
depressed all through the next day, which was 
Sunday, but I did not mention it to my husband, 
as he was an invalid, and I feared to disturb him. 
Strange to say, he also suffered from intense low 
spirits all day, and we were both unable to take 
dinner, he rising from the table, saying: ' I don't 
[95] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

care what it costs, I must have the boy back,' al- 
luding to his eldest son. 

" I mentioned my dream and the bad night 
I had had to two or three friends, but begged 
that they would say nothing of it to Mr. Griffith. 
The next day a letter arrived, containing some 
photos of my son, saying he had had fever, but 
was better, and hoped immediately to leave for a 
much more healthy station. We heard no more 
till the ninth of May, when a letter arrived with 
the news of our son's death from a fresh attack 
of fever, on the night of the eleventh of March, 
and adding that just before his death he kept 
calling repeatedly for me." * 

It is only a short transition from such a dream 
as this to a waking hallucination in which — 
as in the cases of experimental occurrence men- 
tioned above, and those other cases detailed in 
the preceding chapter — phantom forms are dis- 
cerned at the moment when the person seen is 
threatened by some danger or is passing through 
the supreme crisis of death. 

But now, accepting telepathy as an established 
1 " Phantasms of the Living," vol. i, pp. 343-344. 

[96] 






WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

fact, the problem remains : How are we to explain 
it? What is the mechanism by which one person 
is able to transmit messages directly and instan- 
taneously to another person although they may 
be half the world apart? 

To this question, it must frankly be admitted, 
no positive answer can as yet be returned. But 
some extremely plausible hypotheses have been 
advanced, not by mere theorists but by eminent 
men of science, who, themselves affirming the 
actuality of telepathy, have given much thought 
to the problem of its mode of operation. 

Sir William Crookes, for example, calling at- 
tention to the marvelous but undisputed facts 
of ethereal vibration as evidenced by the phe- 
nomena of wireless telegraphy and the Rbntgen 
rays, urges that here we have quite possibly an 
adequate explanation of the mystery of telepathy 
on a wholly naturalistic basis — that is to say, 
a basis which enables us to accept telepathy with- 
out dislocating our entire conception of the 
physical universe. 

" It seems to me," he suggests, " that in these 
rays [Rbntgen rays] we may have a possible way 
[97] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of transmitting intelligence which, with a few rea- 
sonable postulates, may supply the key to much 
that is obscure in psychical research. Let it be 
assumed that these rays, or rays of even higher 
frequency, can pass into the brain and act on 
some nervous center there. Let it be conceived 
that the brain contains a center which uses these 
rays as the vocal chords use sound vibrations 
(both being under the command of intelligence), 
and sends them out, with the velocity of light, to 
impinge on the receiving ganglion of another 
brain. In this same way the phenomena of 
telepathy, and the transmission of intelligence 
from one sensitive to another through long dis- 
tances, seem to come into the domain of law and 
can be grasped." 1 

This undoubtedly is the explanation that most 
strongly commends itself to those scientists who 
courageously acknowledge their belief in telep- 
athy. Nor do they see any objection to it in the 
fact that people apparently are affected by the 
telepathic impulse only at certain times. For the 

1 Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, 
January 29, 1897. 

[981 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

brain of both sender and receiver may conceiv- 
ably, on the analogy of wireless telegraphy, be 
set to transmit and receive telepathic communi- 
cations only when attuned to vibrations of a 
certain amplitude. There is, however, as Sir 
William Crookes himself has recognized, another 
and really formidable objection to this vibratory 
hypothesis. 

It is found in the fact that, assuming telepathic 
messages to be conveyed by a system of infinitely 
minute waves in the ether, we logically have also 
to assume that these waves would still obey 
what is known as the law of inverse squares. 
By this is meant that, spreading on every side 
in ever-expanding waves, they would lose power 
in proportion to the square of the distance from 
their source. Consequently, it would not only 
require a tremendous initial energy to project 
them any great distance, but the farther they 
were sent the feebler they would become, so that 
in the case of a percipient remote from the agent, 
either the telepathic message would not be re- 
ceived at all or at most it would be received in 
exceedingly attenuated fashion. Whereas the 
[99] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

fact is that, according to the results of such ex- 
perimentation as that which I have described, 
complete failure often occurs when the experi- 
menters are only a few yards apart, and brilliant 
successes are sometimes achieved at distances of 
hundreds of miles. 

This consideration has led some thinkers — 
notably Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor W. F. Barrett, 
and the late F. W. H. Myers — to abandon out- 
right all attempt at an explanation on a natural- 
istic basis, and to advance instead the view that 
telepathy is not explicable in physical terms 
because it is a wholly psychical process — "a 
direct and supersensuous communion of mind 
with mind." After all, though, as Mr. Frank 
Podmore has pointed out, this view rests simply 
on a negation — our present inability to con- 
ceive a thoroughly satisfactory explanation; and 
at any time scientific research may remove that 
inability, as has happened again and again in the 
past in the case of other and seemingly equally 
inexplicable phenomena. 

Meanwhile, all that we, scientists and laymen 
alike, need do, is to remember that inability to 
[100] 



WHY I BELIEVE IN TELEPATHY 

explain gives us of itself no warrant to deny. We 
must acquaint ourselves with the facts before 
accepting or rejecting them. And for myself 
I can only say that the actuality of telepathy 
has to my mind been absolutely proved. With 
Sir Oliver Lodge: 

" I am prepared to confess that the weight of 
testimony is sufficient to satisfy my own mind 
that such things do undoubtedly occur; that 
the distance between England and India is no 
barrier to the sympathetic communication of 
intelligence in some way of which we are at 
present ignorant; that just as a signaling-key in 
London causes a telegraphic instrument to re- 
spond instantaneously in Teheran — which is an 
everyday occurrence — so the danger or death 
of a distant child, or brother, or husband, may 
be signaled without wire or telegraph clerk, to the 
heart of a human being fitted to be the recipient 
of such a message." 



[101] 



CHAPTER III 

CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL - GAZING 

THE word clairvoyance has acquired a de- 
cidedly sinister meaning in most people's 
minds. It is associated with professional spirit- 
istic mediums, who lay claim to supernatural 
powers which they are ready, at a moment's no- 
tice, to exercise for all who are credulous enough 
to pay the fee they demand. Newspapers through- 
out the country daily contain advertisements of 
clairvoyants of this type, arrant humbugs, most 
of them, but often able, through cunningly ac- 
quiring information regarding their " sitters' ' 
lives and family relationships, to persuade their 
victims that while " entranced " they are actu- 
ally in contact with the " spirit world." Re- 
peated exposures of their fraudulent methods 
have not driven them out of business, but have 
inspired a widespread and healthy distrust of 
their pretensions. 

[1021 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

Nevertheless, it would be rash to conclude, as 
many of us do, that there is no such thing as 
genuine clairvoyance, by which is meant the 
ability to perceive distant scenes and events as 
if one were bodily present at the place of their 
occurrence. That such a faculty exists, al- 
though usable only on rare occasions, and that 
there is nothing in the least supernatural about 
it, are facts definitely established by the scientif- 
ically trained investigators who have been dili- 
gently attacking this and other psychical prob- 
lems the past twenty-five years. Their researches 
have made it evident that in order to explain 
genuine clairvoyant phenomena it is not neces- 
sary to postulate the intervention of " spirits," 
or the flight through space of the clairvoyant's 
" astral body." At most, clairvoyance is simply 
a special form of telepathy, differing in degree 
but not in kind from the phenomena discussed in 
the preceding chapter. 

There is absolutely no evidence to justify the 
hypothesis of so-called " independent clairvoy- 
ance," advocated by occultists of every shade of 
spiritistic belief, and utilized by unscrupulous 
[103] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

tricksters to dazzle the imagination of their 
dupes. On the other hand, as I hope to make 
convincingly clear, there is plenty of proof that 
the scenes which the true clairvoyant perceives, 
and is frequently able to describe with graphic 
detail, are in reality only mental images, visual 
hallucinations, developed by the same process 
that enables any ordinary telepathic message to 
be apprehended. 

It must be acknowledged, however, that the 
telepathic connection is sometimes extremely 
difficult to trace; as, for example, in the few 
indisputable instances, reported by Professor 
James and other trustworthy investigators, in 
which the services of clairvoyants have been 
successfully invoked to find the bodies of persons 
drowned or otherwise accidentally killed under 
circumstances seemingly precluding any one from 
having knowledge of the place or manner of their 
death. 

A typical case of the kind occurred a few 
years ago in connection with the mysterious death 
of a New Hampshire girl, Miss Bertha Huse, of 
Enfield, who was drowned in Mascoma Lake. 
[1041 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

For three days after the disappearance of Miss 
Huse, one hundred and fifty of her townspeople 
searched vainly for her. She had last been seen 
alive on a long bridge crossing the lake, and it 
was supposed that she had fallen from it or had 
deliberately committed suicide. The waters were 
dragged but without result, and failure also 
attended the efforts of a professional diver from 
Boston employed by a sympathetic citizen. 

Meantime, in the little town of Lebanon, some 
miles distant, a Mrs. Titus fell into a trance, 
during which she talked to her husband and 
described to him a spot in the lake where she said 
the body of the Huse girl was lying. So strongly 
was Mr. Titus impressed by her statements that, 
next day, he took her to Enfield, where the diver, 
following her instructions, quickly found the 
body in the place located by her. 

Mrs. Titus afterwards gave other, if less sensa- 
tional, demonstrations of a similar character; 
and Professor James, who made a close study of 
her case, publicly stated his belief that her ex- 
periences form " a decidedly solid document in 
favor of the admission of a supernormal faculty 
[105] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of seership — whatever preciser meaning may 
later come to be attached to such a phrase." 

There are also on record certain well-attested 
dreams presenting the same difficulty of identi- 
fying the agent, or sender, of the clairvoyant 
vision. A characteristic dream of this sort is 
reported by Mrs. Alfred Wedgwood, daughter- 
in-law of the English savant, Hensleigh Wedg- 
wood. 

" I spent the Christmas holidays with my 
father-in-law in Queen Anne Street," says Mrs. 
Wedgwood, 1 " and in the beginning of January 
I had a remarkably vivid dream, which I told to 
him next morning at breakfast. 

" I dreamed I went to a strange house, stand- 
ing at the corner of a street. When I reached the 
top of the stairs I noticed a window opposite 
with a little colored glass, short muslin blinds 
running on a brass rod. The top of the ceiling 
had a window veiled by colored muslin. There 
were two small shrubs on a little table. The 
drawing-room had a bow window, with the same 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. vii, 
pp. 47-48. 

[1061 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

blinds; the library had a polished floor, with 
the same blinds. 

" As I was going to a child's party at a cousin's, 
whose house I had never seen, I told my father- 
in-law I thought that that would prove to be the 
house. 

" On January tenth I went with my little boy 
to the party, and, by mistake, gave the driver a 
wrong number. When he stopped at number 
twenty, I had misgivings about the house, and 
remarked to the cabman that it was not a corner 
house. The servant could not tell me where 
Mrs. H. lived, and had not a blue-book. Then I 
thought of my dream, and, as a last resource, I 
walked down the street, looking up for the pecul- 
iar blinds I had observed in my dream. These 
I met with at number fifty, a corner house, and, 
knocking at the door, was relieved to find that 
it was the house of which I was in search. 

" On going up-stairs, the room and windows 
corresponded with what I had seen in my dream, 
and the same little shrubs in their pots were 
standing on the landing. The window in which 
I had seen the colored glass was hidden by the 
[1071 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

blind being down, but I learned on inquiry that 
it was really there." 

In this case the dream, though devoid of any 
dramatic feature, served a useful purpose, as 
did a much more spectacular dream occurring to 
Doctor A. K. Young, an Irish magistrate and 
land-owner. 1 In his dream he suddenly found 
himself standing at the gate of a friend's park, 
many miles from home. Near by were a group 
of persons, one a woman with a basket on her 
arm, the rest men, four of whom were tenants of 
his own, while the others were unknown to him. 
Some of the strangers seemed to be making a 
murderous attack on one of his tenants, and he 
ran to his rescue. 

" I struck violently at the man on my left," 
he says, " and then with greater violence at the 
man to my right. Finding to my surprise that 
I did not knock either of them down, I struck 
again and again, with all the violence of a man 
frenzied at the sight of my poor friend's murder. 
To my great amazement, I saw that my arms, 

1 The evidence relating to this dream will be found in " Phan- 
tasms of the Living," vol. i, pp. 381-383. 

[1081 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

although visible to my eye, were without sub- 
stance; and the bodies of the men I struck at 
and my own came close together after each blow 
through the shadowy arms I struck with. My 
blows were delivered with more extreme violence 
than I think I ever exerted; but I became pain- 
fully convinced of my incompetency. I have no 
consciousness of what happened, after this feeling 
of unsubstantiality came upon me." 

Next morning Doctor Young awoke feeling 
stiff and sore, and his wife informed him that 
he had greatly alarmed her during the night by 
striking out "as if fighting for his life." He 
then told her of his curious dream, and asked 
her to remember the names of the actors in it 
recognized by him. The following day he re- 
ceived a letter from his land agent stating that 
the tenant whom he had dreamed he saw at- 
tacked had been found unconscious, and ap- 
parently dying, at the very spot where Doctor 
Young had in his dream tried to defend him; 
and that there was no clue to his assailants. 

That night Doctor Young started for the 
scene of the tragedy, and immediately upon his 
[109] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

arrival applied to the local magistrate for war- 
rants for the arrest of the three men whom, be- 
sides the injured tenant, he had recognized in 
the vision. All three, when arrested and ques- 
tioned separately, told the same story, confirm- 
ing the details of the dream, even to the incident 
of the presence of the woman with the basket. 
They had said nothing about the affair because 
they were afraid it would make trouble for them, 
but they denied any complicity in it, asserting 
that while walking home with them between 
eleven and twelve at night, the tenant — who, 
by the way, ultimately recovered — had been 
attacked by a couple of strangers, whose com- 
panions had prevented them from interfering to 
protect him. 

According to Mrs. Young, it was between 
eleven and twelve o'clock on the night of the 
fight that her sleeping husband had frightened 
her by his violent actions. 

Here the telepathic impulse causing the clair- 
voyant dream may have come either from the 
injured tenant himself or from one of the three 
spectators known to Doctor Young. The diffi- 
[HO] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

culty is to conceive an adequate reason for any 
of them thinking of him, even subconsciously. 
But, granting for argument's sake the possibility 
of independent clairvoyance, the still more thorny 
question at once arises why his " astral body " 
should have chosen to journey to that precise 
spot at that precise moment. 

The obstacles in the way of such a conception 
as independent clairvoyance are too serious to be 
overcome. Nor is it necessary to resort to it, in 
view of the fact that in the vast majority of 
clairvoyant cases it is possible to establish defi- 
nitely the telepathic association. 

Here, by way of illustration, is a typical case, 
fully as impressive as Doctor Young's, but 
leaving no doubt as to its origin. It was reported 
to the Society for Psychical Research by Mrs. 
Hilda West, daughter of Sir John Crowe, who 
was at the time British consul general for Nor- 
way. 

"My father and brother," runs Mrs. West's 
narrative, " were on a journey during the winter. 
I was expecting them home, without knowing 
the exact day of their return. I had gone to bed 

[mi 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

at the usual time, about eleven p. m. Some time 
in the night I had a vivid dream, which made a 
great impression on me. 

" I dreamed I was looking out of a window, 
when I saw father driving in a Spids sledge, fol- 
lowed in another by my brother. They had to 
pass a cross-road, on which another traveler was 
driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse. 
Father seemed to drive on without observing the 
other fellow, who would, without fail, have 
driven over father if he had not made his horse 
rear, so that I saw my father drive under the 
hoofs of the horse. Every moment I expected 
the horse would fall down and crush him. I cried 
out s Father ! Father ! ' and woke in a great 
fright. 

" The next morning my father and brother re- 
turned. I said to them : ' I am so glad to see you 
arrive quite safely, as I had such a dreadful dream 
about you last night.' My brother said: ( You 
could not have been in greater fright about him 
than I was.' And then he related to me what 
had happened, which tallied exactly with my 
dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw 
[112] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

the feet of the horse over father's head, called 
out: 'Oh, father! Father!'" 

Compare with this the very similar instance of 
clairvoyance in a waking or semi-waking state, 
experienced by Mrs. Helen Avery Robinson, of 
Anchorage, Kentucky, and communicated by 
her, with a corroborative letter from her son, 
to Professor Hyslop: 

" My son and a friend had driven across the 
country to dine and spend the evening with 
friends. The rest of the household had retired 
for the night. I was awakened by the telephone, 
and looked at the clock, finding it eleven-thirty. 
I knew my son would soon be in, and thought 
of a window down-stairs, which I felt might not 
have been locked, and I determined to remain 
awake and ask my son to make sure it was secure. 

"As I lay waiting and listening for him, I 
suddenly saw their vehicle, a light break-cart, 
turn over, my son jump out, land on his feet, run 
to the struggling horse's head, his friend hold on 
to the lines, and in a moment it was gone and 
I knew all was right and felt no disturbance. 

" I met my son as he came in, and spoke of the 
[113] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

window. He said: 'We tipped over, mother.' 
I replied: 'Yes, I know it. I saw you.' And 
described what I saw, which he said was just as it 
happened. I did not see them before they started 
out, as his friend called for him with his horse 
and vehicle, so I did not know in what style they 
went." 

It should be added that the spot where the 
cart was overturned was so far from the Robin- 
son house that, even had it been broad daylight, 
Mrs. Robinson could not possibly have witnessed 
the accident from her bedroom. 

In the same way a young man named Frederic 
Marks, in Wallingford, Connecticut, clairvoy- 
antly — and most dramatically — beheld an ac- 
cident occurring to his brother, Charles, on 
Oneida Lake, in New York State, hundreds of 
miles from Wallingford. 1 Charles Marks and 
a friend, Arthur Bloom, had gone for a sail on the 
lake, were caught in a storm, and almost wrecked 
through the giving way of their boom. Charles, 

1 The evidence relating to this case is published in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. vii, pp. 359- 
364. 

[1141 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

however, springing into the bow, managed to 
make the boom fast again, and they succeeded 
in running to shore. 

It was when their danger was greatest that 
they were seen clairvoyantly by Frederic Marks, 
who, it being a rainy afternoon in Wallingford, 
was lounging in his room. 

" I do not think I fell asleep," he testifies, 
" nor did I seem fully awake. But all at once I 
seemed to be facing a severe storm of wind and 
rain. As I looked into the storm a small boat 
with a sail came, driven helplessly along through 
a seething, boiling mass of water. Two young 
men were in it, one trying to steer and control 
the boat, the other apparently trying to dip out 
water and work on the sail. 

" One of the two, in a moment of greatest 
peril, tried to tear down the sail from its mast. 
The face of my brother came clearly into view, 
with an expression on it that remains with me 
now. The boat righted and sped on. I saw a 
low shore that it was driving toward. The boat 
grew fainter as it neared the shore, and con- 
sciousness came back to me, and, whatever it 
[115] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

was, whether a dream or a vision, passed 
away." 

Fortunately, young Marks did not keep his 
singular experience to himself, but hastened 
down-stairs and told his employer — a Mr. 
Bristol, with whom he was living — of what 
he had seen. He was laughed at, of course, and 
assured that it was " only a dream." But three 
or four days afterward a letter arrived from 
Charles Marks, bringing unexpected verification 
of his brother's story. 

Even more detailed, in point of clairvoyant 
perception of a distant scene, is the strange dream 
of a physician, Doctor C. Golinski, of Kremen- 
tchug, Russia. It was Doctor Golinski's custom 
to take a nap during the day, and one afternoon 
he lay down on a sofa as usual, about half-past 
three. While asleep, he says: x 

" I dreamed that the doorbell rang, and that 
I had the usual rather disagreeable sensation 
that I must get up and go to some sick person. 
Then I found myself transported directly into 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. vii, 
pp. 39-41. 

[116] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

a little room with dark hangings. To the right 
of the door leading into the room is a chest of 
drawers, and on this I see a little paraffin lamp 
of a special pattern. To the left of the door I 
see a bed, on which lies a woman suffering from 
severe hemorrhage. I do not know how I come 
to know that she has a hemorrhage, but I know 
it. I examine her, but rather to satisfy my con- 
science than for any other reason, as I know 
beforehand how things are, although no one 
speaks to me. Afterward I dream vaguely of 
medical assistance which I give, and then I 
awake." 

It was then half -past four. About ten minutes 
later the doorbell rang, and Doctor Golinskiwas 
summoned to a patient. His surprise may be 
imagined when he found that he was ushered 
into the identical room of his dream. So aston- 
ished was he that he immediately approached 
the bed on which his patient was lying, and said 
to her: 

" You are suffering from a hemorrhage." 
" Yes," was her reply, in a tone of great aston- 
ishment. " But how do you know it? " 
[117] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

She then told him, in answer to his questions, 
that the hemorrhage had set in about one o'clock, 
but had not been severe enough to alarm her 
until between three and four; and that it was not 
until nearly half-past four that she had decided 
to send for him. 

Nearly every instance of spontaneous clair- 
voyance that is sufficiently authenticated to 
compel credence, resembles these cases, and the 
similarity between them and cases of ordinary 
telepathic hallucination, as described in the 
chapter on telepathy, is too striking, it seems to 
me, to leave any doubt regarding their true 
nature. The only points of difference are that 
there is a greater amount of detail in clairvoyant 
visions, and that the percipient often experiences 
a sensation of being actually present at the scene 
beheld. But this latter fact is easily compre- 
hensible when we remember that the same sen- 
sation of " otherplaceness " is often experienced 
in dreams that have no clairvoyant significance, 
and experienced with an equal feeling of reality, 
dissipated only when the dreamer awakes. As 
to the greater amount of detail, it is only neces- 
[118] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

sary to assume that in clairvoyant cases the 
telepathic action is intensified by some favoring 
condition in the percipient's mind, just as some 
non-clairvoyant dreams are more detailed and 
vivid than others. 

Besides which, the telepathic basis of clairvoy- 
ance has been experimentally demonstrated. One 
of the investigators for the Society for Psychical 
Research, Mr. G. A. Smith, once hypnotized 
a lady and requested her to " look into " the 
business office of a friend of his and tell him what 
she saw there. Much to his surprise she im- 
mediately began to describe the office with great 
exactness, although he was positive she had 
never visited it. 

It then occurred to him that possibly she was 
acquiring her knowledge of it by telepathy from 
his own mind, and to test this theory he thought 
of an imaginary umbrella, which he pictured to 
himself as lying open on his friend's writing table. 
In a minute or so, the clairvoyant uttered a cry 
of astonishment, and exclaimed: 

"Why, how strange! There's a large um- 
brella open on the table! " 
[119] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Usually, however, experiments like this fail, 
the entranced clairvoyant being able to discrim- 
inate between the thoughts which correspond to 
reality and those which are wholly imaginary. 
But that the process involved in clairvoyance is 
unquestionably telepathic has been otherwise 
proved by the fact that when conditions are 
imposed on clairvoyants absolutely excluding 
the possibility of thought transference from one 
mind to another, they are conspicuously unsuc- 
cessful in their efforts to obtain results. If, as 
often happens, they are able to describe distant 
places which they have never seen but with 
which other persons are necessarily familiar, they 
are nevertheless unable to state, for example, the 
number on a bank note, chosen at random from 
among others and placed in their hands in a 
sealed box without anybody previously ascer- 
taining just what the number is. 

Such a test, if successful, would be decisive 
proof of independent clairvoyance; but I have 
yet to learn of any clairvoyant who has been 
able to meet it, although the effort has been fre- 
quently made. It should be pointed out that, 
[120] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

in order to give it evidential value, there must 
not be the slightest possibility of any one even 
glancing at the bank note before it is put into the 
sealed box; for, as has already been said, it is 
now known that the eye is far keener than we 
usually realize, and that the merest glance may 
often put us in possession of facts which, sinking 
into the memory, may afterward emerge to as- 
tonish and perhaps mystify us. Once they were 
lodged in the mind, a clairvoyant could, of course, 
obtain these facts from us telepathically, and 
thus achieve a seeming success even in the bank 
note or some similar test. 

Indeed, this power of subconscious perception 
is of itself sufficient to explain many undoubtedly 
genuine instances of clairvoyance. There is ob- 
viously no need to go beyond it to account for 
such a clairvoyant dream as the following, re- 
ported by a lady who has declined to allow her 
name to be published: 

" A number of years ago I was invited to visit 

a friend who lived at a large and beautiful country 

seat on the Hudson. Shortly after my arrival I 

started, with a number of other guests, to make 

[ 121 1 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

a tour of the very extensive grounds. We walked 
for an hour or more, and thoroughly explored the 
place. Upon my return to the house, I discovered 
that I had lost a gold cuff-stud, which I valued 
for association's sake. I merely remembered that 
I wore it when we started out, and did not think 
of or notice it again until my return, when it was 
missing. As it was quite dark, it seemed useless 
to search for it, especially as it was the season 
of autumn and the ground was covered with 
dead leaves. 

" That night I dreamed that I saw a withered 
grapevine clinging to a wall, and with a pile of 
dead leaves at its base. Underneath the leaves, 
in my dream, I distinctly saw my stud gleaming. 
The following morning I asked the friends with 
whom I had been walking the previous afternoon 
if they remembered seeing any such wall and 
vine, as I did not. They replied that they could 
not recall anything answering the description. 
I did not tell them why I asked, as I felt some- 
what ashamed of the dream; but, during the 
morning, I made some excuse to go out on the 
grounds alone. I walked hither and thither, and, 
[122] 









CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

after a long time, I suddenly came upon the 
wall and vine exactly as they looked in my 
dream. 

" I had not the slightest recollection of seeing 
them, or passing by them on the previous day. 
The dead leaves at the base were lying heaped 
up, as in my dream. I approached cautiously, 
feeling rather uncomfortable and decidedly silly, 
and pushed them aside. I had scattered a large 
number of the leaves when a gleam of gold struck 
m y e ye> and there lay the stud, exactly as in my 
dream." 1 

Akin to this is an exceptionally interesting case 
that was reported to me by a young lady at- 
tending college at Greeley, Colorado. Her father, 
it appears, had sent her a check, which for a day 
or two she delayed cashing. Then, being without 
money, she looked for it in the place where she 
supposed she had put it, but, to her dismay, dis- 
covered that it was not there. A thorough search 
of her room failed to bring it to light, and, as it 
was not a personal check of her father's, she 

1 Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, 
vol. i, pp. 361-362. 

[1231 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

was greatly worried, thinking that it might be 
impossible to duplicate it. 

A couple of nights later she had a curious 
dream in which she saw herself standing in front 
of a bookcase in the college library. On a certain 
shelf were five books, one bound in blue, another 
in yellow, and between them three with a white 
binding. She took down one of the white-covered 
volumes, opened it idly, and in the middle of the 
book found her check. 

Next morning she awoke with no memory of 
the dream, nor did she recall it when, later in 
the day, she visited the college library and came 
across this identical placing of books. It recurred 
to her only when she glanced into one of the 
white-covered volumes. Feeling rather " fool- 
ish," and also not a little apprehensive, she took 
down a second volume of the same set, opened 
it, and there, sure enough, was the missing check! 

She then remembered that the book in which 
it was found had been in her room for some hours 
the day she received her father's letter. What 
happened, I have no doubt, was that she absent- 
mindedly slipped the check into the book, and 
[1241 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

then, so far as her upper consciousness was 
concerned, forgot all about it. But subcon- 
sciously she would remember and subconsciously 
would be reminded of it the day before the dream 
when, in the college library, she happened to see 
the same book again, without, perchance, any 
conscious knowledge of seeing it. That night, 
in sleep, her mind busied itself once more with 
the problem of the missing check, this time to 
good purpose. 

Very similar is a dream for which I am in- 
debted to Mr. Andrew Lang, who got it from 
the dreamer, an English lawyer. This gentle- 
man had sat up late to write letters, and about 
half-past twelve went out to post them. On his 
return he missed a check for a large amount re- 
ceived by him during the day. He searched 
everywhere in vain, went to bed, and soon fell 
asleep. Then he dreamed that he saw the check 
curled around an area railing not far from his 
own door. Waking, he was so impressed that, 
although it was not yet daylight, he got up, 
dressed, walked out of the house, and found the 
check at the spot indicated by his dream. 
[125] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

In another case a Californian, visiting in 
Sullivan County, New York, lost a gold ring 
given him by his sister. That night he dreamed 
he saw it lying in the sand beneath a swing, in 
which he had been sitting in the afternoon. It 
was actually there, as he ascertained by looking 
next day. Similarly, a clerk in a customs house 
recovered a valuable document, the loss of which 
would have cost him his position. And the wife 
of a clergyman, the Reverend W. F. Brand, of 
Emmorton, Maryland, had revealed to her in a 
dream the hiding-place of a sum of money which, 
six months before, she had put away at her hus- 
band's request, but had afterward accidentally 
slipped into a bundle of shawls. 

Decidedly, we not only see more than we are 
aware of, but we also remember more and for a 
far longer time than is usually supposed. 

Which brings me to another point of great 
importance to the student of clairvoyance and 
other psychical problems, and also, as will appear 
in a later chapter, of tremendous significance in 
affairs of everyday life. The tenacity of mem- 
ory is such that nothing one sees is really for- 
[1261 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

gotten. It merely slips, as it were, into some 
subterranean region of the mind, whence, days 
and months and even years afterward, it may be 
recalled. Of this we have incontrovertible proof 
in the phenomena of crystal-gazing, a species 
of clairvoyance in which, by gazing into a crystal 
or a glass of water, or any small body with a 
reflecting surface, it is sometimes possible to 
perceive hallucinatory pictures of people and 
places situated far beyond the gazer's normal 
field of vision, and occasionally depicting events 
occurring at the moment they are seen in the 
crystal. 

Occultists, as will readily be understood, set 
great store by crystal-gazing, finding in it positive 
proof of spirit action. But again it is unnecessary, 
even in the most extraordinary instances re- 
corded, to adopt any other explanatory hypothe- 
sis than that of telepathy, and in most cases the 
source of the visions can be traced directly to 
latent memories in the gazer's own mind. 

This has been beautifully demonstrated by 
Miss Goodrich-Freer, a lady who developed the 
faculty of crystal-gazing for the express purpose 
[127] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of studying and analyzing its hallucinatory im- 
ages. Not everybody, I should perhaps say, 
can attain the degree of mental passivity requi- 
site to seeing pictures in the crystal, but fortu- 
nately for the cause of scientific progress, Miss 
Goodrich-Freer was eminently successful. 

With the aid of her crystal, Miss Goodrich- 
Freer has frequently recalled dates and other 
information which she had forgotten and wished 
to remember; and on at least one occasion, under 
exceptionally peculiar circumstances, she was 
enabled to supply an address which was of no 
special interest to her, but was of special interest 
to a relative. Here is her own account of the 
episode: 1 

" A relative of mine was talking one day with a 
caller in the room next to that in which I was 
reading, and beyond wishing that they were 
jarther, I paid no attention to anything they said, 
and certainly could have declared positively that 
I did not hear a word. Next day I saw in a 
polished mahogany table, s 1, Earl's Square, 

1 In the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
vol. viii, p. 489. 

[1281 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

Notting Hill.' I had no idea whose this address 
might be; but some days later my relative re- 
marked: ' H. (the caller aforesaid) has left Ken- 
sington. She told me her address the other day, 
but I did not write it down.' It occurred to me 
to ask: ' Was it, 1, Earl's Square? ' And this 
turned out to be the case." 

On another occasion, she says in the long report 
she has made on the subject to the Society for 
Psychical Research, she saw in the crystal the 
picture of a dark-colored wall, covered with 
white jessamine. She had been taking a walk 
that morning through the streets of London, and 
she thought that perhaps the crystal image rep- 
resented some spot she had passed in her walk, 
though this seemed unlikely, both because she 
could not remember having seen such a wall, 
and because jessamine-covered walls are by no 
means common in London streets. But the next 
day she retraced her steps, and presently came 
to the identical scene of her crystal vision, the 
sight of it bringing the immediate recollection 
that at the moment she passed this spot the day 
before she had been engaged in absorbing con- 
[129] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

versation with a friend, and her attention was 
wholly preoccupied. The fact, however, of its 
reproduction in the crystal made it evident that, 
by the subtle power of subconscious perception 
she had obtained a perfect mental image of it. 

Similarly, while busied one day with household 
accounts, she opened the drawer of her writing 
table to get her bank-book, and her hand came in 
contact with her crystal. Welcoming the sug- 
gestion of a change in occupation, she took it up, 
and began to gaze into it. But, she says: 

" Figures were still uppermost, and the crystal 
had nothing more attractive to show me than 
the combination seven-six-nine-four. Dismissing 
this as probably the number of the cab I had 
driven in that day, or a chance grouping of the 
figures with which I had been occupied, I laid 
aside the crystal and took up my bank-book, 
which I certainly had not seen for some months, 
and found, to my surprise, that the number on 
the cover was 7694. Had I wished to recall the 
figures, I should, without doubt, have failed, 
and could not even have guessed at the number 
of digits or the value of the first figure." 
[130] 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

It is not surprising to find Miss Goodrich-Freer 
adding: 

" Certainly, one result of crystal-gazing is to 
teach one to abjure the verb ' to forget ' in all its 
moods and tenses." 

Still it is possible that in the act of opening the 
drawer, she caught a glimpse, without realizing 
it, of the number on the bank-book. There are 
many cases, though, in her experience and in the 
experience of other crystal-gazers, proving abso- 
lutely that latent memories dating back even to 
childhood may be thus recalled; and similar evi- 
dence is forthcoming from hallucinations ex- 
perienced without the aid of a crystal. A " psy- 
chic " with whom Professor Hyslop has often 
experimented, and whose home is in Brooklyn, 
used to have a recurrent visual hallucination of 
a bright blue sky overhead, a garden with a high 
fence, and a peculiar chain pump in the garden, 
situated at the back of the house. 

Some time later she left Brooklyn to pay a 

visit to her girlhood home in Ohio, where she met 

a lady who invited her to tea. After tea they 

went into the garden, and there, to her amaze- 

[131] 



ADVENTUKINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

ment, she saw the high fence and the chain pump 
of her hallucination. She felt quite sure that 
she had never been in the place until that day, 
and it looked very much as though she had been 
given a supernatural revelation of it. But the 
mystery was solved on her return to Brooklyn. 

Telling her mother of her odd experience, she 
asked if she thought there was any possibility 
she could have visited that particular house and 
garden in her younger days. 

" Why, yes," was the unexpected reply. " When 
you were a little girl, two or three years old, I 
often took you to it." 

But not all crystal visions may thus be attrib- 
uted to the emergence of subconscious percep- 
tions or the recrudescence of forgotten memories. 
There are some in which the telepathic action of 
mind upon mind is clearly manifested, and in 
which the crystal seems to serve as a mechanical 
aid, enabling the percipient to become aware 
of the telepathic message. In no case, how- 
ever, as I have already said, is it necessary to go 
beyond telepathy to find an adequate explana- 
tion. 

[1321 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CRYSTAL-GAZING 

The same applies to the still more singular 
phenomena to which we shall turn next — the 
phenomena of automatic speaking and writing, 
regarded by many as affording incontrovertible 
proof of the validity of the spiritistic belief that 
the dead can and do communicate with the 
living. 



[133] 



CHAPTER IV 

AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

THERE is a widespread belief that spiritism 
— or spiritualism, as it is more commonly 
known — is on the wane, and will soon be rele- 
gated to the limbo of extinct religions. But the 
facts indicate otherwise. At a conservative es- 
timate, there are to-day, in the United States 
alone, no fewer than 75,000 avowed spiritists, in 
more or less regular attendance at the meetings 
of nearly 450 spiritist societies, and possessing 
church property valued at $2,000,000; and more 
than 1,500,000 believers who, without openly 
identifying themselves with any society, accept 
the ministrations of 1,500 public and 10,000 
private mediums. Spiritism has even " followed 
the flag " into the Philippines, seances being 
held at Manila and elsewhere. 

This certainly is a remarkable showing for a 
moribund religion, and what makes it more 
[134] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

remarkable is the fact that spiritism, from its 
very beginnings sixty years ago, has been per- 
meated with fraud. Its founders, the Fox sisters, 
daughters of a New York farmer, were naughty 
little girls who amused themselves by making 
strange noises which superstitious persons inter- 
preted as communications from the dead. This 
proving profitable to the sisters Fox, the business 
of producing " spirit knockings " spread from 
town to town, and forthwith modern spiritism 
was born. Since then its record has been a long 
and dismal catalogue of swindles exposed by 
skeptical investigators. Scarcely a month passes 
without a story of some sensational expose; yet, 
disproving all predictions to the contrary, spirit- 
ism continues to expand, constantly welcoming 
new recruits to its ranks. 

Several reasons account for its amazing prog- 
ress under what would appear to be the most 
adverse conditions imaginable. One is the innate 
tendency of many people to dabble with the 
occult and mysterious. Another is the appeal 
spiritism makes to the most sacred emotions 
of humanity. Its central doctrine is that it is 
[135] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

possible for the dead to communicate with their 
surviving relatives and friends, through the 
mediumship of " psychics " gifted with extraor- 
dinary powers. Thus the hope is raised that 
messages of good cheer may be received from 
loved ones who have passed to the great Beyond 
— that their voices may be heard, their faces 
seen, and their hands clasped by those from 
whom death has separated them. 

To the spiritistic seance, consequently, go 
grief-stricken men and women, skeptical perhaps, 
but fervently hopeful that their skepticism will 
be overcome. To borrow Professor James's stri- 
king phrase, they are already deeply imbued with 
" the will to believe," and are in no mood for 
close observation of what happens in the seance 
room. Usually, to speak plainly, they are utterly 
lacking in the qualities that make a scientific 
investigator. The sense of their loss is all-ab- 
sorbing, and in this state of mind it is easy for 
any trickster who poses as a medium to delude 
them into fancying that they have actually been 
in touch with the dead. 

But the main reason why spiritism has sur- 
[136] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

vived repeated exposes, and persists as a force 
to be reckoned with in the religious life of to-day, 
is the fact that it is by no means altogether 
synonymous with swindling. There are certain 
phenomena, particularly so-called automatic 
speaking and writing, which it is out of the 
question to attribute invariably to trickery and 
deceit. While one need have no hesitation in 
dismissing as fraudulent * all " physical " me- 
diums — that is to say, mediums whose stock in 
trade is the production of such phenomena as 
the " materialization " of spirit forms and faces, 
the levitation and flinging about of furniture, and 
the striking of the " sitters " by unseen hands 
— the case of the automatists, or " psychical " 
mediums, is decidedly different. 

These are mediums who, after passing into a 
peculiar condition of trance, and occasionally 
while seemingly in their usual waking state, ap- 
pear to be controlled by some outside intelligence, 
and, when so controlled, utter or write informa- 



1 Of course, strictly speaking, the term " fraudulent " should 
not be applied to those mediums who are the victims of a peculiar 
form of hysteria. This is discussed in detail in the next chapter. 

[1371 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

tion which it is hard, if not impossible, to believe 
they could have obtained by any ordinary means. 
To be sure, there is a host of spurious automa- 
tists, against whom one cannot be too watchfully 
on guard. Some of these are out-and-out cheats, 
as brazen as the most rascally materializers. 
Some depend for their success on guessing and on 
inferences shrewdly drawn from hints uncon- 
sciously dropped by their patrons. Quite a 
number, however, undoubtedly seem to exercise 
a gift not possessed — or, at all events, not 
utilized — by everyday men and women. 

One Sunday evening, in the late nineties, I 
visited the spiritist church on Bedford Avenue, 
Brooklyn, of which the late Ira Moore Corliss 
was then pastor. In his day Mr. Corliss was 
probably the most prominent medium in Brook- 
lyn, a city where spiritism has always flourished. 
He was an obviously religious-minded man, and 
one who sincerely believed that it was his mission 
to act as an intermediary between this world and 
the next. That evening the usual order of services 
in spiritist churches was followed — a prayer, 
some hymn singing, a sermon, or " inspirational 
[138] 






AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

discourse," and, lastly, the giving of " test mes- 
sages," in which the medium passed rapidly 
up and down the aisles, pausing here and there 
to deliver oral communications alleged to come 
from the world of spirits. 

Seated next to me was an elderly gentleman 
of dignified appearance, who watched the pro- 
ceedings with a quiet smile of contempt. It was 
evident that this was the first time he had ever 
seen anything of the kind, and that he was both 
amused and disgusted. Suddenly Mr. Corliss, 
halting directly in front of him, said, in the quick, 
nervous way common to him when under " spirit 
control ": 

" I have a message for you, sir." 

" For me? " repeated the elderly gentleman, 
incredulously. 

" Yes, sir, for you. There is a spirit here that 
wants to thank you for your kindly thought of 
him to-day. It is the spirit of a rather tall man, 
heavily built, clean-shaven, with bright, tender 
eyes. He says his name is Henry Ward Beecher." 

The smile faded from the other's face. He 
bent forward, listening intently. 
[1391 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" Go on," he said. 

" This spirit," continued the medium, " says 
that he is glad to know you have not forgotten 
him. He says that he was with you this after- 
noon, when you went to the cemetery and took 
this flower from his grave." 

With a dramatic gesture Mr. Corliss drew 
from the lapel of his astonished auditor's coat a 
sprig of geranium, and held it up so that all could 
see it. 

" Am I not right? " he demanded. 

" You are. Quite right." 

Afterward I joined the elderly gentleman on 
the sidewalk, and plied him with questions. I 
found him greatly mystified. 

" This is too much for me," said he. " I am 
a stranger to Brooklyn, and had never attended 
a spiritualist meeting until to-night. I only 
dropped in out of curiosity. But it is true that 
this afternoon I visited the cemetery where 
Henry Ward Beecher is buried, and picked this 
flower from near his grave, as a memento of my 
visit. Mr. Beecher was a very good friend to 
me in my younger days. How the medium could 
[140] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

know these facts I cannot imagine. I had told 
nobody of my trip to the cemetery, and I am 
positive that no one saw me pick the flower." 

On another occasion I took an artist friend to 
the first seance he ever attended. The medium 
was a psychic of the Corliss type, an automatist 
who delivered his " spirit messages " by word 
of mouth. There were perhaps a dozen other 
sitters present. To one of these, a thin, gaunt, 
haggard-looking young woman, the entranced 
medium announced the presence of "a spirit 
named Wagner." It was none other, it appeared, 
than the spirit of the great musician, who prom- 
ised he would aid her with her musical composi- 
tions. A smile of infinite content transformed 
her careworn features, as she leaned over and 
whispered to my friend: 

" The spirit of Liszt is already helping me. 
With Wagner's aid I cannot fail." 

One could not smile in face of the story of 
boundless faith and pitiful struggle these few 
words told. And with the next sitter pathos rose 
to positive tragedy. 

" There is the spirit of a man here, whose 
[1411 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

name is Frederick," the medium declared, " and 
he comes to you, madam. Take my hand." 

Slowly a woman, dressed in deep mourning, 
stood up and extended her hand. Intensity was 
written in every line of her face. 

" There were two Fredericks," she said. " Which 
is it?" 

" It is the Frederick — it is the Frederick, who, 
while on earth, did this." 

And he struck her sharply on the arm. Tears 
filled her eyes. 

" I understand," she murmured, " I under- 
stand. What does he say? " 

All this was interesting, but not convincing. 
For aught we could tell to the contrary, the 
medium had familiarized himself with the life 
stories of these women, who doubtless were 
regular attendants at his seances. But now he 
passed to the friend by my side. 

" A message for you, sir," said he, " from the 
spirit of a military-looking man. Yes, he says 
that when he was in this sphere he was a com- 
mander of soldiers, a general. This is what he 
looks like." 

[142] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

He launched into a long description, which I 
could see was making a profound impression on 
my friend. 

" Has he anything particular to say to me? " 
he asked. 

" He says that you must on no account decline 
the offer that has been made to you to go West — 
that you will never regret going." 

Less than two hours earlier my companion 
had told me of a commission unexpectedly ten- 
dered him, involving a long sojourn in California. 
At the medium's words he turned pale, and 
glanced around as though half expecting to see 
a ghost standing behind his chair. 

When the seance had come to an end, and we 
were walking home together, he solemnly assured 
me that the medium had accurately described a 
dead friend, an army officer of the rank of gen- 
eral, whose advice, had he been alive, he would 
have sought with regard to his projected journey 
to California. 

Again, there is an interesting case reported 
from New England by the Reverend Willis M. 
Cleaveland. Among Mr. Cleaveland's parish- 
[143] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

ioners was a young woman, Miss Edith Wright, 
who developed mediumistie abilities, being con- 
trolled at times by what purported to be a dis- 
carnate spirit. Dreading notoriety, Miss Wright 
gave very few seances, and then only to her 
closest friends or to sitters with whom her friends 
were well acquainted, and in whose discretion 
they could place reliance. 

One of these was Mr. Cleaveland, who, being 
interested in psychical research, undertook to 
obtain, if possible, proof of the identity of the 
supposed communicating spirit. If you really 
are a spirit, he said in effect, you ought to be 
able to give us some facts about yourself, some- 
thing about your history while you were on 
earth, with data that will enable us to obtain 
confirmation of what you say. The " control " 
readily conceded the reasonableness of this, and 
in the course of several seances made twenty-six 
personal statements, of which the most signifi- 
cant were: 

That her name was Amelia B. Norton. 

That she had been the daughter of an orthodox 
clergyman, of the " water type." 
[1441 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

That she had lived near the Kennebec River, 
in the State of Maine. 

That when writing letters it had been her cus- 
tom to sign herself by the initials N. N., meaning 
Nellie Norton. 

That she had died in middle life. 

That when quite young she had had a love 
affair with a Mr. L. C. Brown, who was still 
living and engaged in business in Boston, at an 
address which the " spirit " gave. 

As goes without saying, Mr. Cleaveland at 
once wrote to Mr. Brown, and in a few days 
received a reply from him, in which he said : 

" I was out in the town of Sharon very recently, 
and called on an elderly gentleman who was a 
manufacturer there when I resided there as a boy 
in my teens. To my surprise, as we were reviving 
old recollections of fifty years ago, he spoke of a 
Miss Norton that he said I was sweet on at that 
time. 

" The facts of the case are that Mary B. Nor- 
ton, who always signed herself Nellie B. Norton, 
came there, a young miss about my age. We 
were, I guess, ardent lovers, but in the course of 
[145] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

two years I left the town and she did, and I 
knew very little of her for a few years after that. 
I think it was about five years later that on my 
way home from the White Mountains I stopped 
off at her home in Maine, which was beside a 
large river. I feel sure this was the Kennebec 
River. Her father was an orthodox minister, but 
I do not understand the meaning of the ' water 
type.' I think some two years later she was 
residing in Fairhaven and sent me some papers 
that contained letters written by Mary B. Norton, 
but from that time — some over forty years — 
I have not seen her. I heard that she died some 
years ago, and think she must have been about 
fifty years of age." 

Later Mr. Brown wrote again, saying that on 
second thought he was not certain that her name 
might not have been Amelia instead of Mary, 
as he had always known her " only as Nellie B." x 

It is to the constant occurrence of incidents 
like these that the vitality of spiritism is mainly 
due. To many people it seems impossible to 

1 This case is reported in detail in the Proceedings of the 
American Society for Psychical Research, vol. ii, pp. 119-138. 

[1461 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

account for such detailed and abundantly corrob- 
orated proofs of personal identity on any hypothe- 
sis short of actual spirit control. Yet in the last 
analysis, when viewed in the sober light of latter- 
day scientific knowledge of the workings of the 
human mind, it will be found that they do not 
afford the conclusive demonstration of the validity 
of the spiritistic doctrine which on the surface 
they appear to yield. For there is always the 
possibility — amounting, I feel warranted in say- 
ing, to certainty — that what they really indicate 
is not communication with the dead, but thought 
transference between living minds. 

In fact the telepathic connection between the 
mind of the medium and the mind of the sitter 
is often most obvious. Take the three cases just 
cited, and which are typical of mediumistic com- 
munications. The statements made by the 
medium Corliss to the friend of Henry Ward 
Beecher were statements relating to an incident 
fresh in the latter's memory, and therefore easily 
obtainable by the telepathic process, which, 
there is reason to believe, is exceptionally at the 
command of genuine psychics. Likewise, my 
[147] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

artist friend was much occupied mentally with 
the problems involved in the California offer, 
and was doubtless thinking of it, consciously or 
subconsciously, at the time the medium invoked 
the " spirit " of the army officer whose advice 
my friend would have sought had that officer 
still been in the flesh. All the medium had to do 
was to tap telepathically my friend's subcon- 
sciousness and extract from it every detail of the 
" revelation " so sensationally made to him in 
the seance room. 

Slightly different, however, is the case of Miss 
Edith Wright. Here the facts thought to ema- 
nate from the dead Amelia B. Norton were facts 
concerning which Miss Wright's sitter, the Rev- 
erend Mr. Cleaveland, was ignorant. But it is 
most significant that, continuing his researches, 
Mr. Cleaveland made the discovery that Miss 
Norton's old sweetheart, Mr. Brown, had had 
at least one sitting with Miss Wright. Mr. Brown 
denied that he had ever said anything about 
Miss Norton in Miss Wright's presence; but his 
memory may have played him false, and, in any 
event, she could have got from him by telepathy 
[148] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

the data with which she afterward astonished 
both him and Mr. Cleaveland. Let me remind 
the reader that among the few definitely ascer- 
tained laws of telepathy is the fact that it is 
possible for telepathic messages to lie long latent 
in the recipient's mind before emerging above 
the threshold of consciousness. 

This is of even greater significance in connec- 
tion with the rarer, but still quite numerous, in- 
stances in which the mediumistic communica- 
tions offered as evidence of spirit identity refer 
to incidents not known by the medium or by the 
sitter or by any previous sitter. These, spiritists 
insist, are absolutely inexplicable on the tele- 
pathic basis. I can make their position clearer 
by citing an illustrative case taken from the 
experience of that greatest of automatists, the 
New England medium, Mrs. Leonora E. Piper, 
whose remarkable mediumistic faculty was first 
made known to the scientific world by Professor 
James thirty years ago, and who has since been 
repeatedly investigated by leading members of 
the Society for Psychical Research. Detectives 
have been employed to dog her footsteps, open 
[1491 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

her mail, watch her every move. But not once 
have they detected her in fraudulent practices; 
and, on the other hand, she has given such con- 
vincing proof of the genuineness of her power 
that some of the most skeptical among her in- 
vestigators have ended by accepting at face 
value her " messages from the dead." 

On one occasion, while she was being investi- 
gated in England by a committee of experts, 
that famous English psychical researcher, Sir 
Oliver Lodge, placed in her hands, while she 
was entranced, a gold watch once the property 
of an uncle of his who had died some twenty 
years before. It was now owned by another 
uncle, a twin brother of the dead man. 

" I was told almost immediately," says Sir 
Oliver, " that it had belonged to one of my 
uncles — one that had been very fond of Uncle 
Robert, the name of the survivor — that the 
watch was now in the possession of this same 
Uncle Robert, with whom its late owner was 
anxious to communicate. After some difficulty 
and many wrong attempts, Doctor Phinuit — 
a ' spirit ' alleged to be controlling Mrs. Piper 
[150] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

— caught the name Jerry, short for Jeremiah, 
and said emphatically, as if impersonating him: 
' This is my watch, and Robert is my brother, 
and I am here. Uncle Jerry, my watch.' 

" All this at the first sitting on the very morn- 
ing the watch had arrived by post, no one but 
myself and a shorthand clerk, who happened 
to have been introduced for the first time at this 
sitting by me, and whose antecedents were well 
known to me, being present. 

" Having thus ostensibly got into communica- 
tion through some means or other with what 
purported to be Uncle Jerry, whom I had indeed 
known slightly in his later years of blindness, but 
of whose early life I knew nothing, I pointed out 
to him that to make Uncle Robert aware of his 
presence it would be well to recall trivial details 
of their boyhood, all of which I would faithfully 
report. 

" He quite caught the idea, and proceeded 
during several successive sittings ostensibly to 
instruct Doctor Phinuit to mention a number 
of little things such as would enable his brother 
to recognize him. References to his blindness, 
[1511 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

illness, and main facts of his life were compara- 
tively useless from my point of view; but these 
details of boyhood, two-thirds of a century ago, 
were utterly and entirely out of my ken. 

" ' Uncle Jerry ' recalled episodes such as 
swimming the creek when they were boys to- 
gether, and running some risk of getting drowned; 
killing a cat in Smith's field; the possession of a 
small rifle, and of a long, peculiar skin, like a 
snakeskin, which he thought was now in the 
possession of Uncle Robert. 

" All these facts have been more or less com- 
pletely verified. But the interesting thing is 
that his twin brother, from whom I got the watch 
and with whom I was thus in correspondence, 
could not remember them all. He recollected 
something about swimming the creek, though he 
himself had merely looked on. He had a distinct 
recollection of having had the snakeskin, and 
of the box in which it was kept, though he did 
not know where it was then. But he altogether 
denied killing the cat, and could not recall Smith's 
field. 

" His memory, however, was decidedly failing 
[152] 






AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

him, and he was good enough to write to another 
brother, Frank, living in Cornwall, an old sea 
captain, and ask if he had any better remem- 
brance of certain facts — of course not giving 
any inexplicable reason for asking. The result 
of this inquiry was triumphantly to vindicate 
the existence of Smith's field as a place near their 
home, where they used to play in Barking, Essex; 
and the killing of a cat by another brother was 
also recollected; while of the swimming of the 
creek, near a mill-race, full details were given, 
Frank and Jerry being the heroes of that fool- 
hardy episode." 

Sir Oliver Lodge himself appears to believe 
that he was actually in communication, through 
Mrs. Piper, with his dead Uncle Jerry; and by 
spiritists generally this is alluded to as a charac- 
teristic instance impossible of explanation on the 
theory of telepathy between living minds. But 
it is pertinent to point out that possibly, in his 
childhood, Sir Oliver may have heard his uncles, 
in some moment of reminiscence, discussing these 
very incidents. He would naturally have for- 
gotten the episode, so far as conscious recollection 
[153] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of it was concerned; but he would none the less 
have retained some memory of their conversa- 
tion in his subconsciousness, whence Mrs. Piper 
could have gained knowledge of it telepathically. 
And, even had he never heard of the incidents, 
they might indeed have been transmitted to him 
telepathically from the surviving uncles, and been 
by him retransmitted to Mrs. Piper. 

This last possibility, involving as it does telep- 
athy between more than two persons, may seem 
to be far-fetched. But there is plenty of evi- 
dence that telepathy of this sort — known tech- 
nically as telepathie d trois — is an actuality. I 
have in mind one particularly interesting case 
studied by Mr. Andrew Lang, the brilliant es- 
sayist and psychical researcher. It concerns a 
crystal-gazer named Miss Angus. 

" Again and again," to give Mr. Lang's own 
words, " Miss Angus, sitting with man or woman, 
described acquaintances of theirs but not of hers, 
in situations not known to the sitters but proved 
to be true to fact. In one instance, Miss Angus 
described doings, from three weeks to a fortnight 
old, of people in India, people whom she had 
[154] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

never seen or heard of, but who were known to 
her sitter. Her account, given on a Saturday, 
was corroborated by a letter from India, which 
arrived next day, Sunday. In another case she 
described — about ten p. m. — what a lady, not 
known to her, but the daughter of a matron 
present, who was not the sitter, had been doing 
about four p. m. on the same day. Again, sitting 
with a lady, Miss Angus described a singular set 
of scenes much in the mind, not of her sitter, but 
of a very unsympathetic stranger, who was read- 
ing a book at the other end of the room. 

" I have tried every hypothesis, normal and 
not so normal, to account for these and analo- 
gous performances of Miss Angus. There was, in 
the Indian and other cases, no physical possi- 
bility of collusion; chance coincidence did not 
seem adequate; ghosts were out of the question, 
so was direct clairvoyance. Nothing remained 
for the speculative theorizer but the idea of cross 
currents of telepathy between Miss Angus, a 
casual stranger, the sitters, and people far away, 
known to the sitters or the stranger, but unknown 
to Miss Angus. 

[155] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" Now," adds Mr. Lang, in a paragraph that 
every attendant at spiritistic seances would do 
well to learn by heart, " suppose that Miss 
Angus, instead of dealing with living people by 
way of crystal-visions, had dealt by way of voice 
or automatic handwriting, and had introduced 
a dead ' communicator.' Then she would have 
been on a par with Mrs. Piper, yet with no aid 
from the dead." 

That automatists " read the mind " of their 
sitters, or draw upon the contents of their own 
subconsciousness in obtaining the facts which 
they give out as coming from the spirit world, is 
further evident from experiments in automatic 
writing conducted by several American and Eng- 
lish psychical researchers. 1 

But when they are genuine automatists, it 
would be unjust to accuse them of conscious 



1 The extent to which automatists sometimes draw on the 
contents of their own subconsciousness is strikingly illustrated 
by a case investigated by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, wherein the 
medium, an estimable young lady of his acquaintance, was 
seemingly " controlled " by the " spirit " of a noblewoman of 
the Middle Ages, who described the customs, manners, and 
personages of the country in which she claimed to have lived, 
in such minute detail and with such accuracy that it seemed 

[1561 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

deception in attributing their communications to 
discarnate spirits. The trance state into which 
they usually fall is an abnormal condition, and is 
not unlike, if not identical with, the hypnotic 
state. As will be shown in detail later, one of the 
distinctive characteristics of hypnosis is the 
preternaturally increased suggestibility of the 
person hypnotized. He will accept and act upon 
the slightest suggestion of the hypnotist, no 
matter how ridiculous and absurd the suggestion 
may be, so long as it is not repugnant to his 
moral sense. Moreover, he can be induced to 
think that he is some one other than his real 
self, and will often assume the traits of the sug- 
gested personality with a fidelity that is as- 
tounding. 

So, likewise, we must believe, with the autom- 
atist, who will impersonate anybody suggested 
— albeit suggested quite unconsciously — by the 

certain this was one case at all events in which survival had 
been proved. Ultimately it was discovered that every fact 
given by the alleged spirit was contained in a little known his- 
torical novel which the medium had read, but read only once, 
when a very small girl. So far as conscious recollection went 
she had forgotten all about this book, but subconsciously she 
had evidently retained a marvelously exact memory of it. 

[157] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

sitters, whether it be the " spirit " of a Greek 
philosopher, an Indian chief, or the deceased 
friend of some one present. Usually he is so 
deeply entranced as to have no knowledge of 
what he is doing, just as the hypnotized subject 
remains in ignorance of the actions he carries 
out in response to the operator's suggestions. 
But there is a record of at least one instance in 
which the automatist, an amateur psychical re- 
searcher named Charles H. Tout, of Vancouver, 
clearly recognized that his various impersona- 
tions were suggested to him by the spectators. 

Mr. Tout relates that after attending a few 
seances with some friends he felt an impulse to 
play medium himself and assume an alien per- 
sonality. Yielding to this impulse, he discovered 
that, without losing complete control of his con- 
sciousness, he could develop a secondary self 
that would impose on the beholders as a discar- 
nate spirit. On one occasion he thus impersonated 
the " spirit " of a dead woman, the mother of a 
friend present, and his impersonation was ac- 
cepted as a genuine case of spirit control. On 
another, after having given several successful 
[158] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

impersonations, he suddenly felt weak and ill. At 
this point, he states: 

" One of the sitters made the remark, which I 
remember to have overheard, ' It is father con- 
trolling him,' and I then seemed to realize who I 
was and whom I was seeking. I began to be 
distressed in my lungs, and should have fallen 
if they had not held me by the hands and let me 
back gently upon the floor. I was in a measure 
still conscious of my actions, though not of my 
surroundings, and I have a clear memory of see- 
ing myself in the character of my dying father 
lying in the bed and in the room in which he died. 
It was a most curious sensation. I saw his 
shrunken hands and face, and lived again through 
his dying moments; only now I was both myself 
— in some indistinct sort of way — and my 
father, with his feelings and appearance." 

All of which Mr. Tout rightly attributes to 
" the dramatic working out, by some half -con- 
scious stratum of his personality, of suggestions 
made at the time by other members of the circle, 
or received in prior experiences of the kind." 

Add to this the known facts of telepathic 
[159] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

action, and there is no need of looking further 
for a comprehensive explanation of the otherwise 
perplexing and supernatural-seeming phenomena 
of psychic automatism. This applies even to 
the phenomenon of so-called " cross-correspond- 
ence/' which has been especially stressed the 
past few years by certain members of the Society 
for Psychical Research as affording proof posi- 
tive of survival. 

With reference to this particular problem, it 
should in the first place be said that, in addition 
to Mrs. Piper, there are a number of other auto- 
matic writers who have been similarly investi- 
gated by the Society for Psychical Research for 
a long term of years, and whose trustworthiness 
has likewise been definitely established. They 
include a Mrs. Holland, a Mrs. Forbes, a Mrs. 
Thompson, Mrs. Verrall, of Newnham College. 
Cambridge, England, and Mrs. Verrall's daugh- 
ter, Miss Helen Verrall. Through these ladies 
thousands of alleged " spirit messages " have 
been received, including many purporting to 
come from Edmund Gurney, Henry Sidgwick, 
Frederic Myers, and Richard Hodgson, who in 
[160] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

their lifetime were the most active and promi- 
nent members of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search. And among the automatic writings sup- 
posed to emanate from them there have been 
not a few so peculiarly conditioned as to suggest 
not only that the " spirits " of the four great 
psychical researchers are in touch with their 
living friends, but that they are working hard 
to devise special tests to prove their identity. 
To put the matter more concretely, let me cite 
the case of Mrs. Holland. This lady is a resident 
of India. In 1893, having seen in the Review 
of Reviews a reference to automatic writing, 
she experimented in it herself, and found that 
she possessed the faculty of penning coherent 
sentences without being conscious of what she 
was writing. She continued these experiments 
for ten years, or until 1903, when, after reading 
Myers's " Human Personality and its Survival of 
Bodily Death," she one day discovered that her 
automatic writing was seemingly no longer spon- 
taneous, but controlled by two outside intelli- 
gences that called themselves " Myers " and 
" Gurney." Each " control," alternating with 
[161] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

the other, caused her to write long communica- 
tions, in which there was mingled with much 
that seemed unintelligible and nonsensical long 
descriptions of unnamed persons and places. 
Her interest aroused, Mrs. Holland collected a 
number of these communications and mailed 
them to Miss Alice Johnson, Research Officer 
of the English Society for Psychical Research. 

Examining them carefully, Miss Johnson dis- 
covered, much to her surprise, that they con- 
tained unmistakable references to people and 
the homes of people whom Myers and Gurney 
had known intimately, but of whom, as Miss 
Johnson satisfied herself by searching inquiry, 
Mrs. Holland had no knowledge. Thus there 
was an excellent description of Mrs. Verrall, her 
husband, Dr. A. W. Verrall, and the Verrall 
dining-room, in which Myers had often been en- 
tertained. Even the street address of the Verralls 
was correctly given. Miss Johnson, as may be 
imagined, at once wrote, urging Mrs. Holland 
to continue her automatic writing, and to forward 
all her script to the offices of the Society. This 
was done, with the result that much else of a 
[1621 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

seemingly evidential value was soon obtained. 
It was especially noted that, although Mrs. 
Holland knew nothing of Latin and Greek, her 
communications from the Myers control occasion- 
ally contained passages written in both these lan- 
guages, with which Myers had been well ac- 
quainted. 

November 25, 1903, the Gurney control wrote 
in the automatic script: " Now there is an experi- 
ment I want you to make — Suggest to the P. R. 
— to Miss J. — that some one with a trained 
will — she will have no difficulty in finding some 
one of the sort — is to try — for a few minutes — 
every morning for at least a month — to convey 
a thought — a phrase — a name — anything they 
like — to your mind." In due course this sug- 
gestion was sent by Mrs. Holland to Miss John- 
son, who arranged for a series of such experi- 
ments, with Mrs. Verrall acting as the second 
medium. 

The experiments began in March, 1905, were 

continued until towards the end of May, and 

were resumed for a few weeks in the spring of the 

following year. The scheme adopted, however, 

[163] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

was not exactly that suggested by the Gurney 
control. Instead of simply attempting to con- 
vey some thought to Mrs. Holland's mind, Mrs. 
Verrall, at Miss Johnson's suggestion, wrote 
automatically herself on each day that Mrs. 
Holland was to write. Neither medium was to 
hold the slightest communication with the other, 
but both were to forwardtheir automatic scripts 
to Miss Johnson as soon as written. In fact, in 
order to prevent any loophole for fraud, Miss 
Johnson throughout the 1905 experiments kept 
Mrs. Holland in ignorance of the identity of her 
fellow-experimenter, who, on her side, was igno- 
rant of Mrs. Holland's real name — the " Hol- 
land " being a pseudonym. Some exceedingly 
interesting results were secured. 

March 1, 1905, Mrs. Holland's script contained 
these sentences, " There are cut flowers in the 
blue jar — jonquils I think and tulips — growing 
tulips near the window. A dull day, but the sky 
hints at spring, and one chirping bird is heard 
above the roar of the traffic." In reply to a ques- 
tioning letter from Miss Johnson, Mrs. Verrall 
wrote: 

[1641 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

" On March 1 the only cut flowers in my draw- 
ing-room were in two blue china jars on the 
mantelpiece; the flowers were large single daffo- 
dils. On the ledge of the window . . . were 
three pots of growing yellow tulips — the only 
flowers near any window. The day was dull 
in the morning, but about twelve the sun came 
out and it was warm; it rained heavily in the 
afternoon." 

There was no " cross-correspondence " in the 
writings of the two scripts for this or the next 
two weeks — the experimenters wrote only once 
a week — but in the scripts of the week following 
Miss Johnson found a curious coincidence — the 
presence of notes of music. Only once before 
or since, she testifies, have notes of music ap- 
peared in the script of either Mrs. Verrall or Mrs. 
Holland. In Mrs. Holland's script of that same 
date, March 22, there was also a reference to 
" the ivory gate through which all good dreams 
come." Mrs. Verrall, it was learned, on March 
19 or 20, had been reading Virgil's passage in 
the " iEneid " about the gates of horn and ivory. 
She had been reading Dante, too, in the original 
[165] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Italian, the first time she had read anything in 
Italian for months; and, oddly enough, Mrs. 
Holland's script for March 22 contained a sen- 
tence in Italian. 

Later scripts were characterized by even more 
striking correspondences, and — which is not 
without interest — on more than one occasion 
the " controls " issued warnings against placing 
faith in Eusapia Paladino. For instance, on 
December 1, 1905, the Myers control wrote 
through Mrs. Holland : " There may be raps 
genuine enough of their kind — I concede the 
raps — poltergeist merely — but the luminous 
appearances — the sounds of a semi-musical nature 

— the flower falling upon the table — trickery 

— trickery." And the Gurney control added: 
" Her feet are very important — Next time can't 
Miss J. sit with the sapient feet both touching 
hers — Let her fix her thoughts on the feet and 
prevent the least movement of them." 

As American investigators have since discovered, 
Eusapia's feet are indeed important. 

These first experiments were followed by others, 
in which, besides Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall, 
[166] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

all four of the other mediums mentioned above 
took part, and again suggestive cross-correspond- 
ences were secured. Besides which, having been 
induced by the results of the Verrall-Holland 
experiments to study more closely earlier scripts 
stored in the Society's archives, Miss Johnson 
discovered what seemed to be similar cross- 
correspondences that occurred before any ex- 
periments of this kind were undertaken. I can 
give only one or two illustrations. August 28, 
1901, Mrs. Forbes wrote a message purporting 
to come from her dead son Talbot, to the effect 
that he had to leave her in order to control an- 
other " sensitive," and through her obtain corrob- 
oration of Mrs. Forbes's own automatic writing. 
On the same day Mrs. Verrall wrote in Latin of a 
fir tree planted in a garden, and the script was 
signed with a sword and a suspended bugle. 
The latter was part of the badge of the regiment 
to which Talbot Forbes had belonged, and Mrs. 
Forbes had in her garden some fir trees grown 
from seed sent to her by her son. These facts, 
according to Miss Johnson, were unknown to 
Mrs. Verrall. 

[167] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

In another case Mrs. Forbes wrote, on Novem- 
ber 26 and 27, 1902, references, absolutely mean- 
ingless to herself, to a passage in a book which 
Mrs. Verrall had been reading on those days; 
and the references also applied appropriately to 
an obscure sentence in Mrs. VerralFs own script 
of November 26. 

But undoubtedly the most impressive cross- 
correspondences were obtained in a series of ex- 
periments extending from November, 1906, to 
June, 1907, and involving concordant automa- 
tism between Mrs. Holland, in India, and Mrs. 
Piper, Mrs. Verrall, and Miss Verrall, in Eng- 
land. A full report on this series is given in the 
October, 1908, issue of the Society's Proceedings. 
The plan followed was to suggest to the controls 
of Mrs. Piper — in her case the alleged " spirits " 
of Myers, Sidgwick, and Hodgson — that they 
transmit to one or more of the other automatists 
some test word or message. There were many 
failures, but there were also many seeming suc- 
cesses. 

January 16, 1907, the Myers control promised 
that it would, as a proof of its identity, cause 
[168] 



AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING 

Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Verrall to sign a piece 
of automatic writing with a triangle drawn within 
a circle. A circle with a triangle inside it actually 
appeared in Mrs. VerralPs script of January 28, 
while a script from Mrs. Holland exhibited several 
geometrical figures, including a circle with a 
triangle outside it. February 6 the same control 
said that it had just been referring, through Mrs. 
Verrall, to a " library matter," and investigation 
showed that half an hour earlier Mrs. Verrall, 
writing at her home in Cambridge, had begun a 
script in which the word " library " occurred 
three times — the only time during the period 
of the experiments that " library " was men- 
tioned in her automatic writing or in Mrs. Piper's 
trance statements. The Myers control again, on 
February 11, announced that it had given " hope, 
star, and Browning " to Mrs. Verrall, and her 
script showed that this was correct. February 12 
the Hodgson control declared it had been trying 
to impress the word " arrow " on Mrs. Verrall. 
Her script for the previous day, when received 
at the Society's offices in London, proved to be 
decorated with a drawing of three arrows. 
[169] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

It is the multiplicity of coincidences like these 
— and I have given only the merest fragment 
of the evidence in hand — that has recently per- 
suaded many hitherto hesitating psychical re- 
searchers, notably Sir Oliver Lodge, that scientific 
proof of spirit communication has veritably been 
obtained. For myself, I must frankly say, how- 
ever, that I cannot accept this view of the case. 
Fraud, I admit, is out of the question as an ex- 
planatory hypothesis. Nor does it seem possible 
to explain away the evidence on the theory of 
mere chance, guessing, " lucky hits," etc. But 
there remains the hypothesis of telepathy be- 
tween living minds; and, as it seems to me, there 
is nothing whatever in the evidence presented 
incompatible with the view that the cross-corre- 
spondences in question resulted from direct 
thought transference between the automatists 
themselves. 



170] 



CHAPTER V 

POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

WE have now to consider a very different 
class of spiritistic manifestations, the so- 
called " physical phenomena," which are his- 
torically among the earliest on record, and at the 
same time are far more spectacular and sensa- 
tional than the phenomena produced by the 
automatic speakers and writers. They include 
such weird occurrences as the appearance in the 
seance room of ghostly forms alleged to be spirits 
" materialized " by the power of the medium; 
the lifting of the latter from the floor by an in- 
visible force; the touching, pinching, and striking 
of the sitters by unseen hands, and the movement 
of small articles of furniture as though alive. 

Occasionally, when the medium is particularly 
gifted, still more striking happenings take place. 
Thus, at a seance with Eusapia Paladino, at- 
tended by such eminent scientists as Professors 
[1711 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Lombroso, Bianchi, Tamburini, Vizioli, and As- 
censi, men whose veracity is beyond question, it 
is recorded by Lombroso l that : 

" We saw a great curtain, which separated our 
room from an alcove adjoining, and which was 
more than three feet distant from the medium, 
suddenly move out toward me, envelop me, and 
wrap me close. Nor was I able to free myself 
from it except with great difficulty. 

" A dish of flour had been put in the little 
alcove room, at a distance of more than four and 
a half feet from the medium, who, in her trance, 
had thought, or, at any rate, spoken, of sprinkling 
some of the flour in our faces. When light was 
made, it was found that the dish was bottom side 
up, with the flour under it. This was dry, to be 
sure, but coagulated, like gelatine. This cir- 
cumstance seems to me doubly irreconcilable — 
first, with the laws of chemistry, and, second, 
with the power of movement of the medium, who 
had not only been bound as to her feet, but had 
her hands -held tight by our hands. 

" When the lights had been turned on, and 

1 " After Death — What? " pp. 57-58. 
[1721 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

we were all ready to go, a great wardrobe that 
stood in the alcove room, about six and a half 
feet away from us, was seen advancing slowly 
towards us. It seemed like a huge pachyderm 
that was proceeding in leisurely fashion to attack 
us." 

Other investigators, men of equally high char- 
acter, report marvels no less amazing. On one 
occasion, Eusapia Paladino is credited with 
having created an invisible man, a being which 
the sitters could distinctly feel, although they 
could not see it, and which, annoyed by their 
inquisitive prodding, finally turned on one of 
them and bit him in the thumb. For this we have 
the authority of Professors Morselli and Barzini, 
the latter being the investigator whose thumb 
was bitten. 

Again, two English noblemen, Lords Dunraven 
and Crawford, affirm that they several times 
saw another medium, the late D. D. Home, float- 
ing through the air; once at a height of more than 
seventy feet above the ground; and that the 
same medium, by some " spiritual " agency, was 
elongated in full view of them, so that they beheld 
[173] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

his stature visibly increase, to decrease again to 
normal height only when he came out of the 
trance condition. 1 

Unfortunately, the " spirits " that perform 
these uncanny feats have a strong liking for 
darkness, a circumstance which has led to whole- 
sale, and repeatedly substantiated, accusations 
of fraud. In fact, there is no other department 
of spiritism to which the taint of fraud has so 
thoroughly attached itself. It is obvious that 
any clever charlatan, by persuading his sitters 
that darkness is necessary for the development 
of occult phenomena, can produce most mysti- 
fying effects, and the records of scientific investi- 
gations, to say nothing of the records of our 
police courts, abound in evidence that swindlers 
have not been slow in availing themselves of 
this opportunity to prey on the credulous and 
superstitious. The lengths to which bogus me- 
diums will sometimes go, and the extreme gulli- 
bility which renders their operations ridiculously 
easy and highly profitable, are amusingly illus- 

1 A detailed account of Home's performances will be found 
in my book, " Historic Ghosts and Ghost-Hunters," pp. 143- 
170. 

[174] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

trated by a story told by Mr. Hereward Car- 
rington, an investigator who has done much to 
make the public acquainted with the ways of 
fraudulent " psychics." 

One of these, according to Mr. Carrington, had 
among his patrons an elderly business man, the 
head of a large concern that manufactured farm- 
ing implements. After several months of inter- 
course, during which the medium deftly led him 
on from marvel to marvel, until at last there was 
no " phenomenon " too incredible for him to 
swallow, he was informed that at the next seance 
he would have the unique experience of convers- 
ing with the spirit of a deceased inhabitant of 
the planet Jupiter. 

Sure enough, after the lights had been carefully 
turned low, he was accosted by a tall, shadowy 
figure, which announced itself as a spirit from 
Jupiter, and which, speaking excellent English, 
proceeded to describe the conditions of life in 
that far-off sphere. The Jupiterians, it appeared, 
were a poor, ignorant lot, scarcely removed from 
barbarism; they were greatly in need of civiliza- 
tion, and any one who should help in civilizing 
[175] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

them would be generously rewarded in the future 
life. 

" I should be glad to do all in my power/' the 
business man eagerly volunteered, " but I'm 
afraid there's nothing I could do." 

4 Yes, indeed, there is. I understand that you 
make farm implements and machinery. Well, 
they haven't as much as a spade on Jupiter. 
If you would send a few tools there, it would be a 
great step toward civilizing them." 

" But how in the world could I get anything 
to them? " 

" That is quite simple," the " spirit " glibly 
explained. " Just send the things to the medium 
here, and he will dematerialize them and ship 
them to Jupiter, where they will be rematerial- 
ized." 

Instead of seeing in this a daring attempt to 
fleece him, the victim joyfully acquiesced, and 
sent a number of spades, plows, harrows, etc., 
to the medium, who promptly disposed of them, 
not to the people of Jupiter, but to a dealer in 
such articles. Other seances followed, the spirit 
from Jupiter again appearing and describing in 
[176] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

picturesque language the beneficent consequences 
of the welcome presents. This meant more gifts, 
which steadily increased in number and value, 
until the confederate who had been playing the 
part of the dead Jupiterian finally became fright- 
ened. 

" Look here," he told the medium, " this has 
got to stop. It was all very well when you were 
satisfied with plows, and rakes, and little things 
like that, but now that you have got him giving 
you horses and harvesters there's bound to be 
trouble. He's sure to find out in the end, and 
some fine morning we'll wake up on the inside of a 
jail." 

" Oh, don't worry," said the medium. " He'll 
never find out anything." 

" I'm not so certain of that. At any rate, 
you'll have to get somebody to take my place." 

One word led to another, and ended in a violent 
quarrel. The confederate, vowing vengeance, 
called on the business man, and told him how he 
had been duped. He was met with the astonish- 
ing reply: 

" I don't believe a word you say." 
[1771 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

"You don't?" he cried. "Didn't you send 
the medium, only yesterday, a horse and cart to 
be dematerialized? " 

" Yes." 

" Well, if you wish to know where they are, 
come with me. He has them in a stable near his 
house, waiting to find a buyer." 

Together they went to the stable, where the 
confederate pointed out the horse and cart that 
had been given to the medium. In particular, 
he identified the cart by the number painted on it. 

" Come, now," said he, " you can't deny that's 
your cart, can you? " 

' Why," was the answer, " it does indeed look 
like my cart. But I know it isn't." 

" How do you know it isn't? " 

" Because " — in a tone of solemn conviction 
— "I know that by this time my cart is on 
Jupiter." 

In another case, drawn to my attention by a 
lawyer friend, the victim was a well-to-do Boston 
merchant, who had become interested in spiritism 
shortly after the death of his wife, to whom he had 
been devotedly attached, and with whose spirit 
[1781 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

he hoped to be brought into communication. A 
medium, learning this, determined to profit from 
his grief and longing, and hired a young woman 
to pose as the spirit of the dead wife. He was 
then told that before long it would be possible to 
" materialize " his wife from the spirit world 
with such substantiality that he would be able 
to clasp her in his arms. 

When the appointed time came, a slender form, 
draped in gauze, emerged from the mediumistic 
cabinet into the darkened seance room, and 
saluted him with a joyful cry of "Husband!" 
There was not light enough to see the " spirit's " 
face, but he did not for an instant doubt that he 
was really gazing at his wife, and rose to embrace 
her. At once the figure vanished, and after the 
lights were turned up the medium explained that 
there would have to be a good many " materializa- 
tions " before the spirit form would be solid 
enough for him to touch it. 

This meant, of course, numerous seances, for 

which the deluded husband paid handsomely. 

It also helped to blind him to the true state of 

affairs, and increased his infatuation to such an 

[179] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

extent that when at length the " spirit " sub- 
mitted to his caresses, it did not seem at all 
incongruous to find that he was pressing to his 
breast a flesh-and-blood woman. 

The medium now resolved on a bold stroke. 
Acting under her instruction, the " spirit " bit- 
terly complained one evening that she did not 
possess any jewelry. 

"What!" her "husband" exclaimed. "Do 
you mean to say that they wear jewelry in the 
other world? " 

" Oh, yes. But nothing to compare with 
what I had while on earth. What have you done 
with mine? " 

" I have it all — every piece — put away in a 
little box." 

" Good. Then if you will bring it to-morrow 
night, I can take it with me when I leave you. 
The medium, you know, can dematerialize it for 
us." 

" I will bring it. Rest assured of that." 

Alas for husbandly devotion! The seance at 
which he turned over the jewelry to the affec- 
tionate " spirit " of his wife was the last at which 
[1801 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

he held communion with her. When he next 
called, he was told that the medium had been 
unexpectedly summoned out of town. She never 
came back. 

These two episodes are typical rather than 
exceptional instances of the sort of thing that 
has been going on for years in connection with the 
physical phenomena of spiritism. Its continuance 
has been made possible largely by a widespread 
belief, entertained not by the ignorant and super- 
stitious merely, but by men of distinction in the 
intellectual and scientific world, that, notwith- 
standing the prevalence of fraud, there are at 
least some physical phenomena which must be 
accounted genuine. 

Men like the Italian savants already named, 
the English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace; 
the great chemist, Sir William Crookes; the 
French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, and 
many others who might be mentioned, are 
satisfied that they have witnessed in the 
seance room occurrences out of all accord 
with natural laws, and not to be attributed to 
fraud. 

[1811 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

In support of this view, emphasis is laid on 
the fact that, leaving out of consideration all 
mediums who employ their powers as a means of 
livelihood, physical phenomena of the most 
bizarre sort have been manifested through men 
and women in private life, who cannot possibly 
have a pecuniary motive for deception, and 
whose character is beyond reproach. 

One of the most celebrated of physical mediums, 
in fact, was a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land, the Reverend W. Stainton Moses, a gentle- 
man respected and warmly esteemed by all who 
knew him. 1 

As a further argument in behalf of the authen- 
ticity of certain of the phenomena, attention is 
also called to the interesting circumstance that, 
long before spiritism and spiritistic mediums 
were heard of, similar marvels — including seem- 
ingly spontaneous movements of furniture, and 
the occurrence of mysterious raps, knockings, 
and other noises — were frequently reported by 

thoroughly reputable witnesses. 

1 An excellent study of the mediumship of Stainton Moses 
is contained in Frank Podmore's " Modern Spiritualism," vol. 
ii, pp. 276-288. 

[1821 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

To mention only a few cases, 1 as long ago as 
1661 there was an outbreak of this kind at the 
home of a wealthy Englishman named Mom- 
pesson, an invisible ghost for months disturbing 
the peace of the Mompesson family by beating 
on a drum, banging at doors, tugging at bed- 
clothes, and hurling household articles about in 
a most destructive manner. The affair made so 
much stir that a royal commission was sent to 
inquire into it, but signally failed to lay the 
ghost. For nearly a year, in 1716-1717, the 
Reverend Samuel Wesley, father of the founder 
of Methodism, was tormented in like fashion at 
his rectory in Lincolnshire. In 1753 a Russian 
monastery was invaded by an equally malicious 
and equally invisible " spirit,' 5 which for months 
amused itself by ringing the monastery bells at 
unseemly hours. Nine years later all London 
was thrilled by the celebrated Cock Lane ghost, 
which produced spirit rappings with as much 
eclat as the most up-to-date, medium-invoked 
visitant from " the other side." In none of these 

1 Studied in detail in my book, " Historic Ghosts and Ghost- 
Hunters." 

[183] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

instances did contemporary investigators find a 
wholly satisfactory explanation for the singular 
phenomena involved. 

Nevertheless, it may confidently be affirmed 
that, instead of strengthening the case for the 
physical phenomena of spiritism, the doings of 
the poltergeists — as these tricky ghosts are 
called by psychical researchers — considerably 
weaken it. For during recent years a number of 
poltergeist hauntings have been looked into by 
members of the Society for Psychical Research, 
and whenever the conditions have been such as 
to permit a thorough investigation, it has been 
found that, so far from being spiritual entities, 
poltergeists are invariably compounded of deceit, 
credulity, and delusion. Even more important, 
from the standpoint of getting at the true inward- 
ness of physical mediumship, the discovery has 
been made that fraud has frequently been prac- 
tised in poltergeist cases without any apparent 
motive. 

Again I will give an instance from actual oc- 
currence, in order to make my meaning perfectly 
clear. Word was one day received at the London 
[1841 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

offices of the Society for Psychical Research that 
a ghost had taken possession of a farmhouse in 
Shropshire, and was making life miserable for the 
lawful occupants, a family named Hampson and 
their two maidservants, Priscilla Evans and 
Emma Da vies. Nobody saw the ghost, but it 
made its presence felt in true poltergeist style. 

It had announced its advent, about four o'clock 
one fine afternoon, by lifting a saucepan from the 
kitchen fire and throwing it across the room, pick- 
ing red-hot coals out of the fire and scattering 
them over the floor, and by causing a lamp globe 
to fly miraculously through the air. This last 
prank, naturally enough, so frightened the 
Hampsons and their servants that they fled from 
the house, and summoned aid from the nearest 
neighbors, among them a Mr. Lea, who, in the 
report that reached the Society for Psychical 
Research, 1 declared that when he approached the 
Hampson homestead, it seemed as if all the up- 
stairs rooms were on fire, " as there was such a 
light in the windows." 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xii, 
pp. 58-67. 

[185] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Reenforced, the Hampsons made bold to enter 
the house again, but the poltergeist had seem- 
ingly formed a strong dislike to them, for the 
report added: 

" As things were continuing to jump about the 
kitchen in a manner which was altogether inex- 
plicable, and many were getting damaged, Hamp- 
son decided to remove everything out of the 
apartment. He accordingly took down a barom- 
eter from the wall, when something struck him 
on the leg, and a loaf of bread, which was on 
the table, was thrown by some invisible means, 
and hit him on the back. A volume of ' Pilgrim's 
Progress ' was thrown, or jumped, through the 
window, and a large, ornamental sea-shell went 
through in similar fashion. 

" In the parlor a sewing machine was thrown 
about and damaged. The nurse girl was nursing 
the baby by the fire when some fire leaped from 
the grate, and the child's hair was singed and 
its arms burned. The girl was so alarmed that 
she set off to a neighbor's, and on the way there 
her clothes took fire, and had to be torn from her 
body. During the evening, while the girl was 
[1861 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

at the neighbor's, a plate, which she touched while 
having her supper, was repeatedly thrown on the 
floor, and the pieces were picked up by some un- 
seen agency, and put in the center of the table." 
On the girl's return to the Hampson place the 
manifestations broke out anew. Mr. and Mrs. 
Lea were strongly of the opinion that they were 
the work of the devil; the Hampsons, however, 
inclined to the view that the blame lay at the door 
of some evil spirit that was especially desirous of 
tormenting the nurse girl, Emma Davies, it being 
noticed that things quieted down whenever she 
was out of the house. On this theory they sent 
her to her home in a neighboring village, where 
the poltergeist continued to annoy her. In the 
presence of a police officer, watching her closely 
to detect evidence of fraud, it wrenched the 
buttons from her dress and ripped out the stitches 
of her apron. While the village schoolmistress 
and some twenty other people looked on, it twice 
drew off her shoes and tossed them to the opposite 
side of the room; and it was said to have after- 
ward lifted her bodily from the floor, and held 
her suspended in mid-air. 
[1871 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Clearly, this was a case calling for investiga- 
tion, and the Society for Psychical Research at 
once commissioned one of its expert - detectives 
of the supernatural, Mr. F. S. Hughes, to proceed 
to the scene of the disturbances. But before he 
arrived, the mystery was solved. The girl, it 
seems, had been made so nervous and excited 
by the unwelcome attentions of the poltergeist 
that it was thought best to place her in a physi- 
cian's care, and she was accordingly taken to a 
sanitarium and kept in strict seclusion, under the 
constant observation of the physician's house- 
keeper, Miss Turner, a shrewd, level-headed 
woman. For three days, the poltergeist continued 
to plague her. Then it suddenly took its de- 
parture, under the following circumstances, nar- 
rated by Mr. Hughes in his official report : 

" On Tuesday morning Miss Turner was in an 
upper room at the back of the house, and the 
servant of the establishment and Emma Davies 
were outside, Emma having her back to the 
house, and unaware that she was observed. Miss 
Turner noticed that she had a piece of brick in 
her hand, held behind her back. This she threw 
[188] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

to a distance by a turn of the wrist, and, while 
doing so, screamed to attract the attention of 
the servant, who, of course, turning round, saw 
the brick in the air, and was very much frightened. 
Emma Davies, looking round, saw that she had 
been seen by Miss Turner, and, apparently im- 
agining that she had been found out, was very 
anxious to return home that night. 

" Miss Turner took no notice of the occurrence 
at the time, but the next morning she asked the 
girl if she had been playing tricks, and the girl 
confessed that she had, and went through some 
of the performances very skillfully, according to 
Miss Turner's account. Later on in the day she 
repeated these in the presence of the doctor, 
Miss Turner, and two reporters from London." 

Obviously, trickster though she was, the girl 
had no rational motive for her conduct. It had 
already cost her a good position, and rendered it 
most unlikely that she would easily get another. 
And, in fact, this same absence of motive is 
conspicuous in nearly all the poltergeist cases 
exposed by the Society for Psychical Research, 
and by independent investigators. It is also 
[189] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

noteworthy that when discovery is made, the 
active agent is usually found to be a boy or girl, 
man or woman, constitutionally or temporarily 
in an abnormal nervous condition. 

In this particular case, for instance, the girl, 
Emma Davies, on the testimony of her mother, 
was subject to "fits." In another case, investi- 
gated by the Society, the poltergeist was defi- 
nitely identified with a little deformed girl, twelve 
years old, of decidedly abnormal characteristics. 
In a third case, investigated by Mr. Frank 
Podmore, another member of the Society and a 
specialist on poltergeists, a confession of fraud 
was elicited from a neurotic boy of fifteen — a 
confession only partial, it is true, but in one sense 
more illuminating than any full confession would 
have been. The case is so instructive, both for 
its revelation of the almost incredible credulity 
of many devotees of spiritism, and for the light 
it throws on the problems of physical medium- 
ship, that I quote it, condensed, from Mr. Pod- 
more's detailed review of his investigation. 1 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xii, 
pp. 101-103. 

[190] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

" In the autumn of 1894," he states, " Mrs. B., 
a lady living in a provincial town, gave me an 
account of certain curious incidents which had 
recently taken place in her house. The occu- 
pants of the house — an old one — consisted, 
besides Mrs. B. and her family, of a widow lady, 
Mrs. D., and her two children, a girl of about 
twenty, CD., and a boy of fifteen, E. D. 

" Mrs. B., C. D., and E. D. had been in the 
habit of trying experiments with planchette in 
the evening. Planchette had given them to 
understand that the house was haunted by four 
spirits, a wicked marquis, a wicked monk, a lay 
desperado, and a virtuous and beautiful young 
lady. These spirits wrote, through planchette, 
of treasure concealed in the house, of a hidden 
chamber, and many other matters. Among other 
proofs were the following: 

" One evening after dark, Mrs. B., in accord- 
ance with directions received through planchette, 
went with CD. and E. D. to an old oak tree in 
the garden, and, standing with the girl and boy 
on either side, holding a hand of each, she dis- 
tinctly heard a stone strike the garden roller a 
[1911 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

few feet off. The phenomenon was repeated 
twice; and her companions solemnly assured 
her that they had no part in the performance. 

" On another occasion, sitting in a bedroom 
in the dark, with only E. D. in the room, Mrs. B. 
was struck by a stone on the temple, heard objects 
thrown about the room, felt an arm put through 
hers, and so on. Some of these phenomena oc- 
curred when she was alone in the room — but 
with the door, I gathered, not shut. 

" Mrs. B. one morning placed a white chrysan- 
themum bouquet on the boughs of the oak tree. 
It disappeared shortly afterward, and on the 
next morning two other small bouquets were 
found there. Mrs. B. asked for whom these were 
intended, and went away, leaving pencil and 
paper. On her return she found the paper torn 
in half, and the initials of her own Christian 
name, and that of C. D., written on the two 
halves respectively, with a bouquet on each half. 

" About this time a secret chamber was dis- 
covered, with the skeleton of a cat crouching 
in act to spring, and the skeleton of a woman. 
Asked more particularly about the latter, Mrs. B. 
[192] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

said : c Well, at least a skull and some bones — 
but it was a woman's skull.' 

" A few days after receiving this account, I 
went down by invitation to the house. I saw 
Mrs. D. and her two children, and received from 
them ungrudging corroboration of Mrs. B.'s 
marvelous story. In E. D.'s company I pene- 
trated the secret chamber, and found there the 
mummified skeleton of what might have been a 
cat — but nothing else. In removing the stains 
left by this exploit, I contrived a tete-a-tete in- 
terview with E. D., and asked him: * How much 
did you do of all these things? ' He replied: 
6 Oh, not much. I only did a few little things.' 

" Pressed on particular points, he admitted 
having thrown one stone at the garden roller, and 
having also thrown a trouser button against the 
wall when sitting alone in the bedroom with 
Mrs. B. He denied having produced the other 
phenomena on those occasions. Asked as to the 
bouquets, he said he had not placed them on 
the tree. Pressed a little more, he said: * If I 
did it, it must have been without knowing it.' 
This without any suggestion from me as to pos- 
[193] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

sible somnambulism, or unconscious action. He 
assured me that his sister had had no hand in this 
matter. I could not get any more out of him, as 
he was shortly after called away. 

" I subsequently learned from his mother that 
E. D. was so nervous and delicate that he slept 
in her room at night; that he. was not allowed 
to do much mental work; that he was subject 
to attacks of somnambulism; and had, indeed, 
fallen into a semiconscious state only a few days 
before, during a lesson in carpentry." 

Probably the whole affair originated in a 
moment of mischief, and was carried on and 
elaborated because of an uncontrollable, and 
perhaps not entirely conscious, desire on the 
part of the abnormally conditioned lad to mystify 
the too easily imposed upon elderly lady. 

In point of fact, the investigations of the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research make it certain 
that in nine cases out of ten a poltergeist is a 
by-product of hysteria, using the term in its 
strictest medical sense. As is well known, one 
of the distinctive symptoms of hysteria is a tend- 
ency to indulge in all manner of lies and decep- 
[1941 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

tions, coupled often with almost diabolical clever- 
ness in giving these lies and deceptions a color 
of reality. Impulse to such trickery may arise 
from a great variety of motives; frequently, it 
would seem, from nothing more than an abnor- 
mal craving for notoriety and admiration. Cer- 
tainly, the hysterical young people run to earth 
by the poltergeist hunters of the Society for 
Psychical Research did not engage in their hoax- 
ings because they expected to make money out 
of them. 

The bearing of all this on the physical phe- 
nomena of spiritism is surely self-evident. It 
shows, for one thing, that the money motive 
is not the only motive inciting mediums to fraud; 
that when a neurotic or hysterical condition is 
present, the best of characters is no guarantee 
against duplicity; and that under such circum- 
stances the detection of fraud is exceedingly 
difficult, particularly in the case of witnesses pre- 
disposed to regard the phenomena as genuine. 
If hysterical children can, as they have often 
done, carry on a course of deception mystifying 
a whole community, it is manifest that mediums 
[195] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

of similar hysterical tendencies, working under 
cover of darkness or in a dim light, can more or 
less readily deceive the most expert observers; 
and, moreover, that they may be only partially, 
if at all, conscious of their own frauds. 1 

Further, in estimating the nature of the phe- 
nomena produced at the seances of physical 
mediums, it is imperative to take into account 
the innumerable possibilities of mal-observation 
on the part of the spectators. Experience has 
shown that comparatively few people, no matter 
how honest, are trustworthy witnesses even when 
conditions for observation are of the best. 

For proof of this, one does not need to look 
beyond the courtroom, where every day per- 
fectly honest people give the most contradictory 
accounts of some simple occurrence. If it is thus 
difficult to see correctly what goes on in the 
broad light of day, it surely is far more difficult 
to be certain of exactly what is happening in a 
room where there is darkness rather than light. 
Besides which, the imaginative faculty may be 

1 1 am inclined, for example, to believe that there is a large 
element of hysteria in the mediumship of the discredited Eusapia 
Paladino, once the marvel of two continents. 

[196] 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

excited to such an extent that the sitters at a 
seance may not only be misled into making inac- 
curate reports of what really occurred, but they 
may even, and with absolute sincerity, testify 
to phenomena which did not occur at all. 

A friend of mine, now a physician in Maryland, 
used to amuse himself in his student days by 
playing medium at table-tipping seances. He 
would cause the table to rap out messages to 
various acquaintances of his, none of whom were 
spiritists, but several of whom became intensely 
interested, owing to their inability to fathom the 
source of the communications they received, my 
friend managing things so skillfully that they did 
not suspect him of hoaxing them. 

One evening the table announced the presence 
of the " spirit " of a little child, the daughter of a 
lady well known to most of the sitters. They 
were not aware, however, that my friend was 
intimately acquainted with the little one's life 
history, and when, utilizing this knowledge, he 
proceeded to make the table rap communications 
of a most personal character, there was consid- 
erable excitement. Suddenly a lady present, not 
[1971 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

a relative of the dead child, uttered a piercing 
scream, and fainted. 

When she was revived, she declared, with 
emphatic assurance, that she had seen the head 
of a child emerge from the center of the table. 

Equally indicative of the part imagination 
plays in constructing spiritistic phenomena is 
an experience of my own with a New York me- 
dium. His specialty was materialization, but at 
the seance in question he did not attempt to 
develop " spirit forms " by any of the methods 
in vogue among materializers. Instead, the gas 
having been lowered until the room was almost in 
total darkness, he went into a " trance," and, 
seated at the seance table, with his head resting 
on his hands, declaimed in a singsong voice: 

" The spirits are coming. I can feel them ap- 
proaching. You will be able to see them soon. 
They are almost here. Here is one now, on my 
left. Can't you see it? And here comes another, 
and another. They are crowding around me, so 
anxious to communicate with you. Can't you 
see them? I can't hold them long; they will be 
gone soon. Oh, can't you see them? " 
[1981 



POLTERGEISTS AND MEDIUMS 

There were, perhaps, a dozen people present, 
including myself and a fellow investigator, who 
had accompanied me. Of the others, three re- 
sponded to the hypnotic suggestiveness of the 
medium's words and manner, and solemnly de- 
clared that they could see a " spirit " hovering 
about him. One lady, whose integrity I could 
not doubt, insisted that she saw two " spirits," 
which she identified as her dead husband and 
brother. 

Undoubtedly, therefore, it is proper to assume 
that when, in the instances cited at the beginning 
of this chapter, Professor Lombroso, sitting with 
Eusapia Paladino, saw a huge wardrobe advance 
to attack him; and when Lords Crawford and 
Dunraven saw the medium Home floating through 
the air, hallucination rather than " spirit action " 
is the correct explanation. At all events, in 
view of the known fallibility of the human senses; 
the manifold opportunities for fraud open to 
mediums; and the fact that, with the single 
exception of Home, every medium subjected to 
scientific investigation has been caught practising 
fraud at one time or another, it seems extremely 
[1991 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

rash to accept as genuine any of the phenomena of 
physical mediumship. 

Still, it would be incorrect to say that the 
time devoted by psychical researchers to the 
investigation of these phenomena has been time 
wasted. They have performed a necessary police 
duty for society, and their labors, as we shall see, 
have been productive of psychological discoveries 
of great practical importance. 



200 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

WHEN the Society for Psychical Research 
was founded, in 1882, its purpose was not 
only to obtain, if possible, scientifically accept- 
able proof of the survival of human personality 
after bodily death, but also to study the nature 
of personality in its mundane aspects, with a 
view to securing greater insight into the powers 
and possibilities of man here on earth. 

In this latter quest it has been eminently 
successful, and thanks to its labors our knowledge 
of ourselves has been increased a thousandfold. 
As has been shown, phenomena hitherto regarded 
as mysterious and " supernatural " — such as ap- 
paritions, clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, etc. — 
have been definitely explained on a purely natural- 
istic basis; and, as was said at the close of the 
last chapter, in addition to naturalizing the su- 
pernatural, psychical researchers have made, or 
[2011 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

have assisted in making, discoveries of great 
practical utility, and having a profound bearing 
on affairs of everyday life. 

Among these, none is of more importance than 
the discovery of the " subconscious." This 
term, which was almost unheard of a few years 
ago, is nowadays used by psychologists in a variety 
of ways, but it may be broadly defined as in- 
cluding an extensive range of mental processes 
and phenomena that occur beneath the surface 
of our ordinary consciousness. Subconscious 
mental action, in fact, has a constant, unceasing 
part in our lives. It is in evidence in such com- 
monplace acts as walking, talking, writing, play- 
ing the piano, handling a tool, a tennis racket, 
or a baseball bat. 

There was a time, in the experience of all of us, 
when we could do none of these things, but had 
to learn them by conscious effort. Little by 
little, as we acquired more skill, the element of 
consciousness became less and less, until at last 
we could execute them in a seemingly automatic 
manner, as in the fashion of the piano player de- 
scribed by Miss Cobbe: 

[2021 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

" Two different lines of hieroglyphics have to be 
read at once, and the right hand has to be guided 
to attend to one of them, the left to the other. 
All the fingers have the work assigned as quickly 
as they can move. The mind, or something which 
does duty as mind, interprets scores of A sharps, 
and B flats, and C naturals into black ivory keys 
and white ones, crotchets, and quavers, and demi- 
quavers, rests, and all the mysteries of music. 
The feet are not idle, but have something to do 
with the pedals. And all this time the performer, 
the conscious performer, is in a seventh heaven of 
artistic rapture at the results of all this tremendous 
business, or perchance lost in a flirtation with the 
individual who turns the leaves of the music book, 
and is justly persuaded she is giving him the whole 
of her soul." 

The subconscious is thus a sort of reservoir in 
which are stored up, available for future use, the 
things learned through education and experience; 
and it also has a dynamic power that enables it to 
supplement, economize, and enlarge the operations 
of the upper consciousness. Ordinarily we fail to 
appreciate what we owe to this hidden servitor, 
[2031 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

for the reason that its workings are so smooth, so 
unobtrusive, as to pass quite unnoticed. Yet 
abundant evidence has been secured to demon- 
strate not simply the fact of its existence, but the 
more significant fact that it is never at rest, but 
is perpetually laboring in our behalf. 

Even when our consciousness is for the mo- 
ment completely in abeyance — as when we are 
asleep — the subconscious continues operant. 
Many of my readers have doubtless had the ex- 
perience of vainly endeavoring for hours, perhaps 
for days, to solve some important problem, and 
then awaking one morning with a luminously 
clear idea of its correct solution. While they 
slept, their subconsciousness had been at work 
disentangling the threads of their conscious rea- 
soning, stripping away and discarding unessentials, 
and finally presenting them with, so to speak, a 
ready-made understanding of that which had 
previously been so perplexing to them. 

In all such cases the action of the subconscious 

is more vividly evident when, as often happens, 

the desired solution is gained during sleep itself, 

in the form of a dream. An excellent example is 

[2041 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

found in an episode narrated by a business man, 
who says: 

" I had been bothered since September with an 
error in my cash account for that month, and, 
despite many hours' examination, it defied all 
my efforts, and I almost gave it up as hopeless. 
It had been the subject of my waking thoughts 
for many nights, and had occupied a large portion 
of my leisure hours. Matters remained thus un- 
settled until the eleventh of December. On this 
night I had not, to my knowledge, once thought 
of the subject, but I had not been long in bed and 
asleep, when my brain was as busy with the 
books as though I had been at my desk. 

" The cash book, banker's pass books, etc., etc., 
appeared before me; and, without any apparent 
trouble, I almost immediately discovered the 
cause of the mistakes, which had arisen out of a 
complicated cross entry. I perfectly recollect 
having taken a slip of paper in my dream, and 
made such a memorandum as would enable me to 
correct the error at some leisure time; and, having 
done this, that the whole of the circumstances had 
passed from my mind. 

[2051 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" When I awoke in the morning I had not the 
slightest recollection of my dream, nor did it 
once occur to me throughout the day, although 
I had the very books before me on which I 
had apparently been engaged in my sleep, When 
I returned home in the afternoon, as I did early, 
for the purpose of dressing, and proceeded to 
shave, I took up a piece of paper from my dress- 
ing table to wipe my razor, and you may imagine 
my surprise at finding thereon the very memoran- 
dum I fancied I had made during the previous 
night. The effect on me was such that I returned 
to our office and turned to the cash book, when I 
found that I had really, while asleep, detected 
the error which I could not detect in my waking 
hours, and had actually jotted it down at the 
time. 

" I have no recollection whatever as to where I 
obtained the paper and pencil with which I made 
the memorandum. It certainly must have been 
written in the dark, and in my bedroom, as I 
found both paper and pencil there the following 
afternoon. The pencil was not one which I am in 
the habit of carrying, and my impression is that 
[2061 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

I must either have found it in the room, or gone 
down-stairs for it." 1 

Illustrative of the same subconscious mechan- 
ism, and doubly interesting because of the light 
it throws on the true nature of many dreams fre- 
quently regarded as supernatural, is a singular 
experience that once befell Professor H. V. Hil- 
precht, the well-known archaeologist of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. 

At the time, Professor Hilprecht was trying to 
decipher the inscriptions on two small fragments 
of agate from the temple of Bel in ancient Baby- 
lonia, and believed by him to be portions of the 
finger rings of some wealthy Babylonian. He had 
already published a preliminary report on the 
collection of which they formed a part, but, 
despite weeks of earnest effort, had utterly failed 
to get at the meaning of the words inscribed on 
them. 

One Saturday night, after working on the frag- 
ments until nearly twelve o'clock without any 
satisfactory result, he went to bed weary and 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii, 
pp. 394-395. 

[207] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

exhausted, and was soon in a deep sleep. He 
then dreamed that he was transported to the 
temple of Bel, where a venerable priest, whose 
dress showed that he belonged to a pre-Christian 
epoch, conducted him into the treasure chamber of 
the temple. It was a small, low room, without 
windows, and contained a large wooden chest, 
around which were scattered pieces of agate and 
other valuable stones. While Professor Hilprecht 
stood looking at these, the priest said to him: 

" The two fragments which you have published 
separately upon pages 22 and 26 belong together, 
are not finger rings, and their history is as fol- 
lows: 

" Eang Kurigalzu [who reigned in Babylonia 
about 1300 b. a], once sent to the temple of Bel, 
among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, 
an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then we 
priests suddenly received the command to make 
for the statue of the god Ninib a pair of earrings 
of agate. We were in great dismay, since there 
was no agate at hand as raw material. In order 
to execute the command, there was nothing for 
us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three 
[208] 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

parts, making three rings, each of which contained 
a portion of the original inscription. 

"The first two rings served as earrings for the 
statue of the god; the two fragments which have 
given you so much trouble are portions of them. 
If you will put the two together you will have 
confirmation of my words. But the third ring 
you have not yet found in the course of your 
excavations, and you never will find it." 

With this the priest disappeared, and the dream 
came to an end. In the morning, impressed with 
its coherence and vividness, Professor Hilprecht 
again attacked the troublesome fragments, put 
them together as directed, and, by making the 
proper guesses for the missing middle portion, 
readily deciphered the full inscription: "To the 
god Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, 
pontifex of Bel, presented this." 1 

Nor are the intellectual achievements of the 
subconscious during sleep confined to the solution 
of problems that have been vexing the upper 
consciousness. It has a highly original, creative 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xii, 
pp. 14-15. 

[ 209 ] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

power of its own. Thus the composer Tartini 
dreamed one night that he heard the devil play- 
ing a wonderful sonata, and, remembering it on 
awaking, was able to set it down on paper, and 
thereby put to his credit one of the finest pieces 
of music that bears his name. Coleridge's " Kubla 
Khan " was another dream composition; and, 
indeed, a long list of masterpieces in music, art, 
and literature, originating through subconscious 
mental action in sleep, might be drawn up. 

A typical case was recently communicated to 
me by a well-known Pacific Coast architect, Mr. 
B. J. S. Cahill. He had been commissioned to 
design a twenty-six-story office building, to be 
erected in Portland, Oregon, and he determined, 
if possible, to plan one that would be a real con- 
tribution towards the solution of some of the most 
difficult problems of modern commercial archi- 
tecture. For weeks Mr. Cahill labored hard to 
devise a building that would unite a maximum 
of beauty, solidity, and capacity with an abun- 
dance, and as nearly as possible an equality, of 
light and air for the many offices it was to contain. 
The structure he ultimately conceived was cer- 
[210] 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

tainly novel, and differed conspicuously from the 
ordinary four-sided office building, with its inner 
offices lighted from a court. 

His plan called for the construction of a build- 
ing shaped much like a St. Andrew's cross, or like 
a square with a triangle cut out of each side. In 
this way the need for an inner court was com- 
pletely obviated, and the only poorly ventilated 
and dimly lighted portion of the building would 
be its central " core." Here the elevators and 
stairs were to be located. 

According to the architect's own statement, 
this plan — which has been highly praised by so 
eminent a critic as Mr. Montgomery Schuyler — 
was born in his mind while he slept. One night 
he saw in a dream a building shaped in this fashion, 
and knew that his problem was solved. He tells 
me that on awaking he made two rough sketches 
of the plan in a pocket note-book — one showing 
the general design, the other indicating the ap- 
pearance of the building when completed. 

Perhaps no one has ever been more favored in 
this same way than that remarkable man of 
genius, the late Robert Louis Stevenson. The 
[211] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

plots for many of Stevenson's best stories — 
including the marvelous " Doctor Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde " — came to him in dreams, as he himself 
has related in a delightful autobiographical essay, 
in which, with characteristic whimsicality, he 
personifies his subconscious ideas as " Brownies " 
and " little people." 

" This dreamer, like many other persons," he 
says, " has encountered some trifling vicissitudes 
of fortune. When the bank begins to send letters, 
and the butcher to linger at the back gates, he 
sets to belaboring his brains after a story, for that 
is his readiest money winner; and behold! at 
once the little people begin to bestir themselves 
in the same quest, and labor all night long, and 
all night long set before him truncheons of tales 
upon their lighted theater. No fear of his being 
frightened now; the flying heart and the frozen 
scalp are things bygone; applause, growing ap- 
plause, growing interest, growing exultation in his 
own cleverness — for he takes all the credit — 
and at last a jubilant leap to wakefulness, with the 
cry: ' I have it, that'll do! ' upon his lips; with 
such and similar emotions he sits at these noc- 
[2121 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

turnal dreams, with such outbreaks, like Claudius 
in the play, he scatters the performance in the 
midst. 

" Often enough the waking is a disappoint- 
ment; he has been too deep asleep, as I explain 
the thing; drowsiness has gained his little peo- 
ple; they have gone stumbling and maundering 
through their parts; and the play, to the wakened 
mind, is seen to be a tissue of absurdities. And 
yet how often have these sleepless Brownies done 
him honest service, and given him, as he sat idly 
taking his pleasure in the boxes, better tales than 
he could fashion for himself. 

" The more I think of it," Stevenson continues, 
" the more I am moved to press upon the world 
my question: ' Who are the little people? ' They 
are near connections of the dreamer's, beyond 
doubt; they share in his financial worries, and 
have an eye to the bank book; they share plainly 
in his training; they have plainly learned, like 
him, to build the scheme of a considerable story, 
and to arrange emotion in progressive order; 
only I think they have more talent; and one thing 
is beyond doubt — they can tell him a story piece 
[2131 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

by piece, like a serial, and keep him all the while 
in ignorance of where they aim. 

" That part of my work which is done while I 
am sleeping is the Brownies' part beyond con- 
tention; but that which is done when I am up and 
about is by no means necessarily mine, since all 
goes to show the Brownies have a hand in it even 
then." 1 

It is worth noting that facts like these have 
recently led to a novel theory explanatory of 
what is known as " genius." Instead of adopt- 
ing the Lombrosian doctrine, and regarding the 
man of genius as a kind of transcendental degen- 
erate, this latest theory affirms that he is what 
he is by reason of enjoying a readier commu- 
nication than most men possess between the 
conscious and subconscious portions of his mind. 
Such a view has the further virtue of being com- 
pletely in accord with the familiar definition of 
genius as an infinite capacity for hard work. 

From what has been said, it must be evident 
that the contents of the subconscious are made 

1 Quoted from the " Chapter on Dreams," in R. L. Steven- 
son's " Across the Plains." 

T2141 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

up in large measure of knowledge gained at one 
time or another by conscious endeavor and 
thought. The man who thinks hard consciously, 
is certain to have a richer fund of subconscious 
information at his disposal than the one whose 
conscious thinking is of the idle, futile, scatter- 
brained sort. All successful men, whether a 
Milton or a Rockefeller, a Shakespeare or a 
Morgan, are men who have developed their sub- 
conscious faculties by laborious application of 
their conscious powers in the routine of daily 
life. 

On the other hand, it has also to be observed 
that knowledge is often obtained subconsciously 
without passing through any preliminary stage 
of conscious attention and awareness; and that, 
by a reversal of the usual process, the conscious 
frequently acquires from the subconscious infor- 
mation of which it would otherwise be ignorant. 

I have previously alluded to this interesting and 
most important fact in my discussion of telepathy, 
clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, and kindred prob- 
lems in psychical research. As we then saw, the 
subconscious has a certain eerie faculty of impart- 
[2151 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

ing its information to the upper consciousness in 
the way of hallucinations, indicative at times of 
thought transference from mind to mind, or, more 
commonly, originating merely from unnoticed 
impressions of direct, personal experience. 

It cannot be too firmly borne in mind that every 
day of our lives we see and hear and feel more 
than we realize; that these unobserved sights 
and sounds and sensations may, nevertheless, be 
subconsciously registered in our minds; and that 
they may soon or late be projected above the 
threshold of consciousness in a form astonishing, 
puzzling, and perhaps annoying to us, as in the 
case of a strange experience of a young New York 
newspaper man. 

It was his business to edit for publication in a 
number of country newspapers the dispatches 
sent in by a telegraphic news agency. He had 
been thus engaged for perhaps a year when he 
noticed, greatly to his dismay, that he was re- 
peatedly omitting items which he believed, on 
reading them in the telegraphic copy, to be " old 
news," but which were printed with more or less 
prominence in the next morning's issues of other 
[2161 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

newspapers. This occurred so often that he began 
to tremble for his position, and set himself ear- 
nestly to solve the mystery. 

Luckily he had some acquaintance with psy- 
chology, and knew that his trouble must be due 
to a faulty identification of subconscious with 
conscious impressions. But why was it, he asked 
himself, that on certain nights he would be quite 
free from such errors of judgment, while on others 
he might omit, or be strongly tempted to omit, 
on the ground of supposed previous publication, 
half a dozen items of real news value? The truth 
dawned on him one evening as he was sitting down 
to begin work. 

On his desk lay a heap of envelopes containing 
the dispatches that had come from the news agency 
before his arrival at the newspaper office. These 
should already have been opened by an office 
boy, but that night he had been busy with some- 
thing else. Mechanically, the editor himself tore 
open the envelopes, smoothed out their contents, 
and, without reading them, made a neat pile of 
the typewritten sheets, preparatory to going 
through them. 

F2171 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

He had not been working an hour when he came 
to a dispatch, which he tossed aside, with the 
muttered comment, " That's an old story, sure. 
I've read it somewhere before." 

Then, remembering the mistakes he had been 
making, he hesitated, picked it up, and read it 
carefully. Every word in it seemed familiar. 
But where could he have read it? In the evening 
papers? He went through them one by one, 
without result. Then it suddenly occurred to 
him that possibly, in opening the dispatches, he 
had, without being aware of it, glanced at this 
particular item, and had obtained a subconscious 
knowledge of it, which was now welling up con- 
fusedly as a conscious memory. 

To test this theory, he directed the office boy 
to open the dispatches without fail for the next 
few nights. On none of these did he suffer from 
memory confusion. 

Possibly, if he had analyzed the matter further, 
he would have found that the news items which 
had caught his eye while smoothing out the dis- 
patch sheets related to subjects of some special 
interest to him. For just as one's conscious at- 
[2181 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

tention is arrested by that which is particularly 
interesting, so does the subconscious select for 
presentation to the upper consciousness informa- 
tion of temporary or habitual interest and sig- 
nificance. 

Sometimes, too, there is involved a harking 
back to interests of an earlier period of life. A 
simple but instructive illustration of this is found 
in a little incident that occurred to Doctor Rich- 
ard Hodgson while on a visit to England. It may 
best be reported in his own words: * 

" Yesterday morning (September 13, 1895), 
just after breakfast, I was strolling alone along 
one of the garden paths of Leckhampton House, 
Cambridge, repeating aloud to myself the verses 
of a poem. I became temporarily oblivious to 
my garden surroundings, and regained my con- 
sciousness of them suddenly, to find myself brought 
to a stand, in a stooping position, gazing intently 
at a five-leaved clover. On careful examination, 
I found about a dozen specimens of five-leaved 
clover, as well as several specimens of four-leaved 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, 
p. 415. 

[219] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

clover, all of which probably came from the same 
root. 

" Several years ago I was interested in getting 
extra-leaved clovers, but I have not for years 
made any active search for them, though occa- 
sionally my conscious attention, as I walked along, 
has been given to appearances of four-leaved 
clover, which proved, on examination, to be de- 
ceptive. The peculiarity of yesterday's ' find ' 
was that I discovered myself, with a sort of shock, 
standing still and stooping down, and afterward 
realized that a five-leaved clover was directly 
under my eyes." 

Compare with this an incident reported by an 
English clergyman, the Reverend P. H. Newnham. 
We find in it exactly the same element of selective 
subconscious attention, accompanied, however, 
by an auditory hallucination as a means of notify- 
ing the upper consciousness of the fact subcon- 
sciously observed. 

" I was visiting friends at Tunbridge Wells," 

says Mr. Newnham, " and went out one evening, 

entomologizing. As I crossed a stile into a field, 

on my way to a neighboring wood, a voice said 

[2201 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

distinctly in my right ear: ' You'll find " Cha- 
onia " on that oak.' This was a very scarce moth, 
which I had never seen before, and which most 
assuredly I had never consciously thought of 
seeing. There were several oaks in the field, but 
I instinctively walked up to one, straight to the 
off side of it, and there was the moth indicated." * 
The psychological explanation of this is simple 
enough, and is equally applicable to similar, if 
more sensational, hallucinations widely heralded 
as of supernatural character. It is manifestly 
absurd to suppose that a " spirit " announced to 
the entomologizing clergyman the presence of the 
rare and greatly sought-after moth which it was 
his good fortune to capture. But it is not at all 
absurd to suggest that quite likely, although he 
had consciously forgotten all about it, he had at 
some time seen Chaonia, or an entomological text- 
book picture of Chaonia; that he had subcon- 
ciously caught a glimpse of it, fluttering across 
the field and settling on the oak, and that his sub- 
conscious recognition of its identity had set in 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, 
p. 411. 

[221] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

motion the proper mental mechanism to notify 
his upper consciousness of a fact in which it would 
naturally be much interested. 

There may also be a subconscious intensifica- 
tion, or " hyperesthesia," of other senses than that 
of sight. In all probability hyperesthesia of the 
sense of hearing is sufficient to account for the 
dramatic central incident in the following story, 
told by a lady whose identity I am unable to 
reveal : 

" I was living one summer in a little mining 
camp in the Rocky Mountains. Our house, a 
frame building, was some little distance from any 
other, at the top of a steep hill; the only disad- 
vantage of this being the additional difficulty of 
getting water, which was an expensive com- 
modity in the camp, as the adjacent mines had 
drained most of the wells. 

" The house contained six rooms, all opening 
one out of another, my own room, with a dressing 
closet beyond, where my child slept, being at one 
end, and the front porch, which overlooked the 
valley, at the other. 

" One evening, after my little girl was asleep, 
[2221 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

I lit a tiny night lamp, always left burning on a 
bracket in her room; and, leaving all doors and 
windows open, on account of the intense heat, 
went to sit on the front porch. I may have sat 
there half an hour, when my attention was caught 
by a great blazing light in the direction of the 
farthest houses. It appeared evident that one at 
least had taken fire, and the difficulty of getting 
water, and the hope that no children were in 
danger, flashed through my mind. 

" While watching the rapidly growing glare, I 
heard a faint, crackling sound in my own house. 
It would not have disturbed me at any other time, 
as I only supposed that some smouldering piece 
of cedar in the kitchen stove had blazed up. 
But, with the present thought of fire in my mind, 
I went into the kitchen to look, and, glancing 
through the open doors as I passed, saw a volume 
of flame and smoke pouring from the child's room 
into mine. 

" Thank God it was still possible to rush through 

and save her; and I carried her out in a blanket 

to prevent the scorch, for the room was only 

burning at one end; the side where the bed stood, 

[2231 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

though fearfully hot and suffocating, was not yet 
on fire, and, thanks to the timely warning, the 
water left in the barrels proved just enough to 
extinguish the flames before very much was des- 
troyed. 

" After all was quiet, I went back to the porch 
to look at that other burning house, feeling so 
thankful that my child was safe, and wondering 
if others were, also. But all was dark, and when I 
came to make inquiry next day, nothing was 
known in the camp of any such fire. Had it not 
been for my strange vision of it, which must have 
lasted fully ten minutes, I feel sure that my little 
girl would have been burned to death." 1 

There is a possibility, though only a possibility, 
that telepathy between mother and child may 
have had part in the production of this helpful 
hallucination. But hyperesthesia of the sense of 
hearing seems to afford the likelier explanation, 
as also in numerous well-authenticated instances, 
in which railroad men, obeying an unaccountable 
impulse or hallucinatory monition, have taken 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, 
pp. 418-419. 

[224] 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

action averting disastrous wrecks. A single illus- 
trative example must suffice, a case called to the 
attention of the Society for Psychical Research 
by Mr. William H. Wyman, of Dunkirk, N. Y.: 

" Some years ago my brother was employed 
on, and had charge as conductor and engineer of, 
a work train on the Lake Shore and Michigan 
Southern Railway, running between Buffalo and 
Erie. I often went with him to the gravel bank, 
where he had his headquarters, and returned on 
his train with him. 

" On one occasion I was with him, and after 
the train of cars was loaded, we went together 
to the telegraph office to see if there were any 
orders, and to find out if the trains were on time, 
as we had to keep out of the way of all regular 
trains. After looking over the train reports, and 
finding them all on time, we started for Buffalo. 

"As we approached Westfield station, running 
about twelve miles per hour, and when within 
about one mile of a long curve in the line, my 
brother all of a sudden shut off the steam, and, 
quickly stepping over to the fireman's side of the 
engine, he looked out of the cab window, and then 
[225] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

to the rear of his train. Not discovering anything 
wrong, he put on steam, but almost immediately 
again shut it off, and gave the signal for brakes, 
and stopped. 

" After inspecting the engine and train, and 
finding nothing wrong, he seemed very much 
excited, and for a short time he acted as if he did 
not know where he was or what to do. I asked 
what was the matter. He replied that he did not 
know; then, after looking at his watch and orders, 
he said that he felt that there was some trouble 
on the line of the road. I suggested that he had 
better run his train to the station and find out. 
He then ordered his flagman to go ahead around 
the curve, which was just ahead of us, and he 
would follow with the train. 

" The flagman started and had barely time to 
flag an extra express train, with the general super- 
intendent and others on board, coming full forty 
miles an hour. The superintendent inquired what 
he was doing there, and if he did not receive 
orders to keep out of the way of the extra. My 
brother told him that he had not received orders, 
and did not know of any extra train coming; that 
[2261 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

we had both examined the train reports before 
leaving the station. The train was then backed 
to the station, where it was found that no orders 
had been given." * 

Incidents such as this are of not infrequent 
occurrence. By the superstitious they are re- 
garded as weird and uncanny, and savoring of the 
spiritistic. In reality they are only exceptional 
exemplifications of a process which is ceaselessly 
taking place in all of us. There is no one who 
does not, every day, perform acts which he can- 
not consciously account for, and which, if closely 
inquired into, would be found similarly to take 
their rise in unnoticed subconscious impressions. 
For the matter of that, it is possible to train one- 
self to subconscious attention to selected impres- 
sions, even in sleep. 

A familiar illustration is the mother who, un- 
disturbed by other sounds, awakens at the least 
cry of her infant. The same phenomenon is ob- 
servable in the case of the conscientious medical 
nurse, who, no matter how profound her sleep, 

1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xi, 
p. 416. 

[227] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

responds instantly to any movement by her 
patient. And, in the course of conversation not 
long ago, a physician said to me: 

" As you know, my house is on a car line, and, 
besides the cars, there is much automobile and 
carriage traffic on my street for a large part of 
the night. Nothing of this breaks my rest. I 
sleep so soundly that a thunderstorm does not 
arouse me. Yet let the telephone bell begin to 
ring, and I am out of bed and have the receiver 
at my ear before the bell has ceased ringing." 

I have myself, like a good many other people, 
found it possible to make the subconscious do the 
work of an alarm clock. That is to say, if, on 
going to bed, I mentally determine to wake at a 
certain hour, I invariably do so, and this although 
I am one of the deepest of sleepers. It matters 
not what hour I select, nor how late I retire the 
previous night, the mental sentinel whom I have 
placed on guard punctually notifies me when 
the appointed time arrives. 

This goes to show, of course, that the sub- 
conscious is, to a certain extent, at any rate, amen- 
able to conscious control and direction. That 
[2281 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

such control is highly desirable is evinced not 
merely by the facts reviewed above, but by others 
which we must next take under consideration 
— facts of altogether different import. For if, 
as we have seen, the subconscious is in many ways 
a docile and helpful auxiliary of the upper con- 
sciousness, it also contains within itself dire pos- 
sibilities of unhappiness, suffering, disease, and 
even death. 



[229] 



CHAPTER VII 

DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

THE subconscious, I repeat, does not always 
exercise a helpful influence; there are times 
when it may impose upon us indescribable 
misery. 

It is able to do this by virtue of the intimate 
relations existing between the mind and the body. 
At this late day it is scarcely necessary for me 
to undertake to demonstrate that the state of 
one's mind has a great deal to do with the health 
of one's body. What is not so generally known, 
and what all of us ought to know, is the further 
fact that many diseases are directly due to dis- 
tressing mental states, and in such cases usually 
to subconscious mental states — that is to say, 
to thoughts and emotions of which the sufferer 
consciously has no knowledge. The same often 
holds good even with regard to maladies the 
symptoms of which are almost wholly if not al- 
[230] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

together physical, and the causes of which one 
would naturally expect to find physical, likewise. 

Indeed, ignorance of the tremendous role played 
by the subconscious in the causation of disease, 
has in the past been responsible for many medical 
shortcomings. Nor is the situation as yet much 
improved, although it is rapidly improving, thanks 
chiefly to the labors of a little group of scientific 
investigators known as psychopathologists, or 
medical psychologists, who have made it their 
special business to ascertain the different ways 
in which the subconscious may affect health ad- 
versely, and to devise methods for coping with 
mentally caused diseases. 

These men are not " faith healers." They are 
not making any war on medicine. They are, in 
fact, themselves physicians, graduates of the 
best medical schools, of excellent standing in their 
profession, and seeking, above all things, to in- 
crease the usefulness and precision of medical 
science. Already, though their labors were begun 
only a few years ago, they have effected numer- 
ous cures of a seemingly miraculous character; 
but always they have effected them by utilizing 
[231] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

natural laws which they have discovered by the 
rigorous processes of scientific experiment. 

Of fundamental importance among these laws 
is one known as the law of dissociation. It might 
almost be called the law of forgotten memories, 
for to a large extent its workings depend on the 
interesting circumstance, to which attention has 
previously been drawn, that ideas which have 
faded from the conscious memory persist in the 
subconsciousness. As Pierre Janet, the distin- 
guished Frenchman and most eminent of living 
psychopathologists, has tersely phrased it, " Noth- 
ing that goes into the human mind is ever really 
lost." 

No matter how remote, past experiences, as I 
have shown in earlier chapters, can be recovered 
and recalled to mind by means of crystal-vision, 
automatic writing, or other psychological methods 
of " tapping the subconscious." Obviously we 
have here no absolute loss of memory, but merely 
a splitting off, or " dissociation," from the field 
of waking consciousness. 

Now, while the memories thus dissociated and 
lying hidden in the subconscious usually exercise 
[232] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

no appreciable effect other than in the molding 
of character, the enlargement of our store of 
knowledge, etc., there are conditions under which, 
in the case of persons predisposed by circum- 
stances of heredity or environment, they may give 
rise to all manner of mental and physical ills. 

A person, for instance, experiences a sudden 
fright. Time passes, the fright is completely for- 
gotten, or, at most, vaguely remembered. But 
one day unmistakable, and sometimes exceedingly 
peculiar, symptoms of disease appear. The 
victim, it may be, suffers from a strange obsession 
or " fixed idea," or from a general " nervous break- 
down," or from an actual paralysis of some bodily 
organ, or from the development of abdominal 
or other enlargements resembling true organic 
growths. 

Whatever the symptoms, the mechanism of 
the puzzling malady is always the same. There 
has been an abnormal dissociation. The ideas 
connected with the original shock, although sub- 
merged beneath the threshold of consciousness — 
in a word, forgotten — remain vividly alive in the 
subconscious, to act as perpetual irritants of the 
[233] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

nervous system and in time to give rise to the 
appearance of the symptoms of which the suf- 
erer complains. Often, indeed, the dissociation 
is instantaneous, and the appearance of the dis- 
ease symptoms equally rapid. 

In either case, the resultant malady is purely 
psychical in its origin, and can be cured only by 
psychical, not by physical means. What is needed 
is to get at the dissociated mental states — the 
forgotten, disease-creating memories — and re- 
associate them with the upper consciousness, or 
root them out completely by means of " sugges- 
tions " skillfully applied. 

This is no fanciful theory. It is the solidest 
kind of fact, repeatedly tested and verified. Time 
and again, patients pronounced incurable by com- 
petent physicians have been taken in hand by 
the psychopathologists and, once their disease 
has been definitely traced to some dissociation, 
have been restored to perfect health. 

For the matter of that, of course, the same 

thing has been done to some extent by Christian 

Science healers and other irregular practitioners 

of "mental medicine." But the difference be- 

[234] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

tween all of these and the psychopathologists is 
just this — that the former apply the healing 
power of suggestion to all sorts of diseases, and 
without any adequate understanding of its laws 
and limitations, whereas the psychopathologists 
recognize that it is only one of several valuable 
medical methods, and that it is legitimately ap- 
plicable only to certain maladies. 

Experience has taught them, too, that even 
within its proper sphere of usefulness it often is 
of therapeutic value only after a searching scien- 
tific examination of the patient's subconscious- 
ness has brought to light the particular dissociated 
states which have to be corrected before a cure 
can be wrought. 

Nevertheless, the range of maladies susceptible 
of cure by psychopathological processes is mar- 
velously wide, and it is no exaggeration to say 
that the discovery of the influence exercised 
by the subconscious in the causation of disease 
is one of the most vitally significant ever made 
in the history of medicine. 

The truth of this may readily be shown by 
citing a few cases illustrating some of the manifold 
[2351 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

ways in which dissociation works havoc in the 
human organism, and the extreme ingenuity dis- 
played by the skilled psychopathologist in over- 
coming its ravages. 

There was brought one day to the Parisian 
hospital of the Salpetriere, the world's greatest 
center of psychopathological investigation, a 
woman of forty, designated in the medical record 
of her case by the name of Justine. She was 
accompanied by her husband, who explained that 
he wished Doctor Janet to examine her because 
he feared that she had become insane. And, in 
fact, she presented the aspect of a veritable 
maniac. Her jet-black hair was flowing loosely 
over her shoulders, her eyes were fixed and glar- 
ing, her hands trembling, the muscles of her neck 
twitching, and she constantly made the most 
horrible grimaces. When Doctor Janet gently 
sought to question her, she buried her face in^her 
hands, and cried: 

" Oh, it is terrible to live thus! I am afraid, I 
am so afraid! " 

" And of what, pray, are you afraid? " the 
physician asked. 

[2361 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

" I am afraid of cholera." 

" Is that all you are afraid of? " 

" But surely it is quite enough." 

Doctor Janet turned for an explanation to her 
husband, who shook his head despairingly, as 
he replied in an undertone: 

" This is the way she has been for years, doctor, 
only lately she has grown much worse. She will 
scarcely eat anything, for fear of catching cholera. 
It is difficult to persuade her to stir from the 
house. She seems to think the air is full of cholera 
germs. She sees cholera in everything. Tell me, 
doctor, is my poor Justine mad? Must we be 
separated, she and I? Is it that she will have to 
spend the rest of her life in an asylum? " 

" Leave her here a few days," said Doctor 
Janet, " and I can tell you better then." 

Psychopathologists have invented some deli- 
cate tests for discriminating infallibly between 
true organic insanity, which in the present state 
of medical knowledge is quite incurable, and func- 
tional mental troubles due to dissociation. Ap- 
plying these, Doctor Janet soon reached the con- 
clusion that Justine was not really insane, and 
[2371 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

that her " phobia," or irrational fear, was due to 
some forgotten shock connected with the disease 
cholera. 

But, closely though he questioned her, she 
could recall nothing of the sort. He then decided 
to try the effect of hypnotizing her, for, as all 
psychopathologists are aware, hypnotism, when 
it is possible to use it, is an unrivaled agency for 
recovering lost memories. Put into the hypnotic 
state, patients easily remember incidents in their 
past of which they have no conscious recollection 
when in the normal, waking state. It was thus 
with Justine, who proved to be most hypnoti- 
zable. 

" I want you," Doctor Janet told her, after she 
had passed into deep hypnosis, " to try to re- 
member whether at any time in your life you saw 
a person suffering from cholera, or one who had 
died from cholera." 

" Why, certainly I did," she promptly replied, 
shuddering violently. 

" When was it? " 

" When I was a little girl — fifteen years 
old." 

[2381 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

" Tell me the circumstances." 

" My mother was very poor. She had to take 
all sorts of work. Sometimes she nursed sick 
people, and when they died she got them ready 
for burial. Once two people in our neighborhood 
died from cholera, and I helped her with the 
corpses. They made a frightful sight — one of 
them, at all events. It was the body of a man, 
naked, and all blue and green. Oh, frightful, 
frightful! What if I should catch the cholera? 
I shall catch it, I know I shall ! Nothing can save 
me!" 

Her voice rose in a shriek of terror, and Doctor 
Janet hastened to de-hypnotize her. 

The situation was now perfectly clear to him. 
Evidently the sight of the corpse, " naked, and 
all blue and green," had so profoundly affected 
the impressionable girl as to cause a severe dis- 
sociation whereby all memory of the shocking 
episode had been blotted put of her consciousness, 
only to be subconsciously remembered in most 
minute detail. 

To bring about a cure, to free her from the ob- 
sessing dread of cholera, it was necessary to 
[2391 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

remove the gruesome subconscious memory image, 
and Doctor Janet essayed to do this through sug- 
gestions given to her when she was again hypno- 
tized. 

" You will no longer think of this," he kept 
assuring her. ,( You will forget it, absolutely, 
permanently." 

Day after day, for weeks, he hypnotized her, 
and reiterated similar commands. But she con- 
tinued to be afflicted with her irrational fear, 
and it finally became certain that her subcon- 
scious recollection of the phobia-causing scene 
of twenty-five years before was too deeply 
rooted to be destroyed by direct attack. In- 
stead, however, of abandoning the task as hope- 
less, Doctor Janet, with a shrewdness born of 
long experience, made a clever change in tac- 
tics. 

" You insist," he said to the hypnotized Jus- 
tine, " that you cannot help seeing in your 
mind's eye the corpse of the man who died. 
Very well, I have no objection to that. But 
hereafter you must see it decently clothed. So 
when it next appears to you, you will see it 
[240] 






DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

wearing a bright blue-and-green uniform, the 
uniform of a foreign military officer." 

Happily, this suggestion " took," and Doctor 
Janet followed up his advantage by suggesting 
that the subconscious memory image which she 
regarded as that of a corpse was, in reality, 
the image of a living man. This suggestion 
likewise being successful, he set about getting 
rid of the idea " cholera," and its dire implica- 
tions. Hypnotizing the patient as usual, he 
demanded : 

;i What is this ' cholera ' that troubles you 
so much? Do you not understand that it is 
only the name of the fine gentleman in blue and 
green, whom you see marching up and down? 
He is a Chinese general, and his name is Cho Le 
Ra. Bear that well in mind." 

Quite evidently there was nothing to inspire 
dread in the image of a picturesque Chinese 
officer, General Cho Le Ra. Little by little, 
as this artificial conception obtained firmer lodg- 
ment in Justine's subconsciousness, the baneful 
idea which it was intended to supplant faded 
away, and with its fading the abnormal fear 
[2411 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

diminished, until at length it entirely disap- 
peared, greatly to her joy and the warm gratitude 
of her devoted husband. 1 

Other psychopathologists, following Doctor 
Janet's lead, have similarly used this method of 
substituting one subconscious idea for another. 
Doctor John E. Donley, a well-known neurolo- 
gist of Providence, Rhode Island, and one of 
the few psychopathologists whom the United 
States has yet produced, was once consulted by a 
young man of thirty-two, who said to him: 

" Doctor Donley, I hear you have been very 
successful in handling people troubled with fool- 
ish notions. I'm bothered with as foolish a 
notion as any one could possibly imagine. I 
simply can't bear to ride in a street-car with an 
odd number. Even-numbered cars give me no 
trouble at all, but if an odd-numbered car comes 
along, I've got to let it pass, no matter how great 
my hurry. My friends laugh at me, but I tell 
you it's no laughing matter. The thing has got 

on my nerves so that it is unbearable." 

x This case and a number of other instances of forgotten 
terrors giving rise to disease-symptoms are discussed in detail 
in Doctor Janet's " N6vroses et Id6es Fixes." 

[2421 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

" How long have you been suffering in this 
way? " asked Doctor Donley. 

" For years. Just when it began I can't re- 
member." 

"Is it only odd-numbered cars that affect 
you? How about odd-numbered houses, for 
instance? " 

" No, no," answered the young man, " it 
isn't odd numbers in general. That doesn't 
bother me a bit. It's just when they're painted 
on street-cars." 

" H'm," said Doctor Donley. " Ever been in 
a street-car accident? " 

" Never." 

" Ever seen one? " 

" Not that I remember." 

" You are quite sure as to that? " 

" Quite." 

" Have you any objection to my hypnotizing 
you.'' 

" Not in the least, if it is likely to do me any 
good." 

In another ten minutes the problem was 
solved. Doctor Donley from the outset had felt 
[2431 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

confident that the young man's phobia must be 
connected in some way with a street-car accident, 
and so it proved. Fourteen years earlier, when 
walking along the street, he had seen a car strike 
and seriously injure a child who unexpectedly 
came from behind a wagon. He had noticed 
at the time that the car bore the number two 
hundred and thirteen, and he remembered think- 
ing to himself: "There is always bad luck in 
thirteen." The sight of the accident gave him 
a marked emotional shock, which, he said, upset 
him for several days. 

All of this had long since passed from his 
waking memory, but was distinctly recalled 
during hypnosis. It was clear to Doctor Donley 
that the case was one of dissociation, and that 
the exciting cause of the young man's unreason- 
able dread of odd-numbered cars was based on a 
painfully vivid subconscious memory image of 
the consciously forgotten tragedy. Also, it was 
evident that before the dread could be overcome 
the distressing memory image would have to be 
eradicated. 

To accomplish this, Doctor Donley resorted 
[2441 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

to the method of substitution, suggesting to the 
patient, while still under hypnotic influence, that 
he was quite mistaken in supposing that the 
street-car had seriously injured the little girl; 
that, on the contrary, it had scarcely touched her. 

The result, after only eight days' treatment, 
was effectually to replace the painful memory 
image with one free from distressing associations. 
As by magic, the young man shook off his absurd 
phobia. No longer, when he had to take a car, 
did he stand on street corners, sometimes for an 
hour at a time, waiting anxiously for a car with 
an even number to appear. 1 

Bizarre as these cases must seem, they are 
actually typical of a widespread malady that 
causes an amount of suffering only appreciable 
by the sufferers themselves. In every land there 
are thousands of men and women afflicted with 
obsessions equally strange and equally distress- 
ing, yet amenable to treatment by the methods 
of psychopathology. 

1 This case and several others similarly illustrative of the 
disease-creating power of emotional disturbances are discussed 
by Doctor Donley in " Psychotherapeutics," a book of com- 
posite authorship. 

T2451 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Often, in order to effect a cure, it is not neces- 
sary to make use of the roundabout device just 
described. Direct suggestion — a strongly nega- 
tive command imposed in the hypnotic state — 
is frequently sufficient. 

Often, besides, it is not necessary to use hypno- 
tism at all, a cure resulting if only the psycho- 
pathologist can dig down to the root of the 
trouble, and, by recalling to conscious recollec- 
tion the lost memory image, reassociate it with 
the rest of the contents of the upper conscious- 
ness. 

Particularly interesting in this connection, as 
being illustrative also of an ingenious method of 
" mind tunnelling " nowadays frequently em- 
ployed to get at forgotten memories, is a case 
reported by Doctor A. A. Brill, a New York 
psychopathologist. His patient was a young 
woman who applied to be treated for extreme 
nervousness. She had been perfectly well until 
three months before, when, she said, she had 
begun to suffer from a complication of disorders, 
including insomnia, loss of appetite, constant 
headache, irritability, and stomach trouble. No 
[2461 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

physical cause for her condition could be de- 
tected, and Doctor Brill suspected that it was 
due to some secret anxiety, but the patient 
earnestly assured him that she " had nothing 
on her mind." 

To get at the facts which he suspected she 
was consciously or unconsciously concealing from 
him, Doctor Brill decided to make use of what 
is known as the " association-reaction method 
of mental diagnosis," a cumbersome and for- 
midable term for a really simple process. 

Everybody knows that if a man is suddenly 
asked a question bearing on matters which per- 
sonally concern him and which he is anxious to 
keep entirely to himself, he is apt to " react " 
to the question in a way that will betray the 
true state of affairs. He may blush or stammer 
before replying, may reply evasively, may find 
it impossible to reply at all. If he is a man of 
uncommon self-control, and not to be taken off 
his guard, the reply may come smoothly enough, 
and to all appearance without hesitation. Never- 
theless, experiment has shown that, even in such 
cases, there is an appreciable difference in the 
[2471 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

time, if not in the character, of the replies he 
makes to emotion-arousing questions, as com- 
pared with the time it takes him to reply to 
questions that have no special significance to 
him. The same holds good in the case of ques- 
tions evoking within him memories — albeit per- 
haps wholly subconscious memories — of hap- 
penings that may be no longer, but once were, of 
keen emotional import to him. 

Out of the discovery of this fact the association- 
reaction method has been evolved. The specialist 
using it reads slowly to his patient a list of one 
hundred words or more, and requests him, as 
he hears each, to respond with the first word that 
comes into his mind. Seemingly the list of 
stimulus words is chosen at random; actually it 
is so constructed that some of the words are likely 
to stir into activity the subconscious memories 
of which the physician is in search. If they do 
this the fact will be disclosed in the time of his 
reaction- words — the words he utters in reply 
— as measured by a chronoscope or stop-watch; 
or in their character, as noted down by the 
specialist. 

[248] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

Of course, it is necessary for the physician to 
select words having, or likely to have, emotional 
significance to the particular patient; and as a 
guide in the selection, strange though it may 
seem, nothing is more useful than the patient's 
dreams. For it has been definitely established 
that dreams are far from being the haphazard 
products of imagination they are generally sup- 
posed to be; that on the contrary, no matter 
how trivial or nonsensical they seem, they always 
have an emotional foundation corresponding with 
some present or past reality; and that usually 
they mask matters of distinct significance to the 
dreamer. 

As a preliminary, then, in the treatment of 
his nervous patient, Doctor Brill asked her to 
write out her dreams and bring them to him. 

" But," she said, " I never dream, except 
when I am troubled by indigestion, and then 
my dreams are so absurd that they are not worth 
telling." 

" Never mind," was his reply. " Whenever 
you do happen to have a dream, report it to 
me." 

[249] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

Laughingly she promised to comply, and one 
day brought him the following: 

" I dreamed that I was in a lonely country place 
and was anxious to reach my home, but could 
not get there. Every time I made a move there 
was a wall in the way — it looked like a street 
full of walls. My legs were as heavy as lead; 
I could only walk very slowly as if I were very 
weak or very old. Then there was a flock of 
chickens, but that seemed to be in a crowded city 
street, and they — the chickens — ran after me, 
and the biggest of all said something like : ' Come 
with me into the dark.' " 

" There," she said, " that is my dream, and 
if you can make head or tail of it, it is more than 
I can. It is so ridiculous that I am ashamed to 
tell it." 

But Doctor Brill was already at work drawing 
up a test list, with the more striking words of 
the dream sprinkled through it. Twice he read 
the list to her, noting not only the time of her 
responses, but also their character. 

He was immediately impressed by the fact 
that certain of the dream words — such as 
[250] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

" chicken," " street," and " dark " had caused 
a noticeable time variation; and that she had 
also given in her responses words that would not 
ordinarily be associated with the test words. 
Especially peculiar was the association of " mys- 
tery " and " marriage " with the word " dark." 
The suspicion formed in his mind that a disap- 
pointment in love might be at the bottom of all 
her disease symptoms. But he did not at once 
give voice to this idea; instead, he sought to 
obtain corroboration from her own lips without 
her appreciating his purpose, by means of an- 
other method of " mind tunnelling " known as 
the method of free association. 

" I want you," he said to her, " to concentrate 
your attention on the word ' chicken,' and state 
the thoughts that come to you in connection 
with it." 

Her reply, given after a few moments of silent 
meditation, was: 

" I remember now that I could see only the 

biggest chicken; all the others seemed blurred; 

it was unusually big and had a very long neck 

and it spoke to me. The street in which I saw it 

[2511 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

recalls where I used to go to school — the block 
was always crowded with school children.' 5 

She paused, and began to blush and laugh. 

" Go on," said Doctor Brill encouragingly. 
" What next? " 

" Why, it recalls the happy school days when 
I was young and had no worries. I even had 
a beau, a boy who attended the same school. 
We used to meet after school hours and walk 
home together. He was lanky and thin, and the 
girls used to tease me about him. Whenever 
they saw him coming, they said : * Belle, here 
comes your chicken.' That was his nickname 
among the boys." 

Stopping suddenly, she exclaimed: 

" Doctor Brill, it couldn't be possible that the 
chicken with the long neck, that I saw in my 
.dream, was my old beau ! " 

" It begins to look very much like it," he 
smiled. " Have you seen him lately? " 

" Not for months." 

" And before then? " 

Little by little the whole story came out. 
They had kept up their acquaintance after the 
[252] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

school days were long gone. Three times he had 
asked her to marry him, but each time she had 
refused, because although she " liked " him she 
was not at all sure that she " loved " him. At 
last she had decided that the next time he pro- 
posed she would accept. But he had not pro- 
posed again. And shortly before she became ill 
she had heard that he was paying attentions to 
another young lady. 

': I take it," interposed Doctor Brill, " that he 
is not so well off as he might be, and that this had 
something to do with your refusing to marry 
him." 

" What makes you say that? " 

" In your dream I note that you state: * Every 
time I made a move there was a wall in the way; 
it looked like a street full of walls.' A street 
full of walls might easily signify Wall Street — 
hence money. That has been the real obstacle, 
has it not? " 

She confessed that he was right. 

He then explained that the one great cause 
of her ills was her insistent, if subconscious, 
brooding over the disappointment she had ex- 
[253] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

perienced, and that her cure depended upon her 
ability to overcome this mental attitude. Real- 
izing for the first time, as a result of the dream 
analysis, that she was really in love with the man 
she had three times declined to wed, she soon 
solved the problem. Only a hint was needed 
to transform him into a suitor once more, and 
within a very few months they were happily 
married. 1 

Sometimes direct questioning is sufficient to 
enable the physician to get at the underlying 
mental cause of trouble. Take, for example, an- 
other case successfully treated by Doctor Donley. 

The patient was a woman of thirty-five who 
was troubled by a constant and involuntary 
hacking, which sounded as though she were 
trying to clear her throat. Drugs, local applica- 
tions, and electricity had been tried at intervals 
during more than four years, but to no purpose. 
On inquiry, it was found that the trouble had 
set in about five years before, when the patient, 
who was a mill hand, had suffered from a sore 

1 Doctor Brill has reported and discussed this case in his 
recently published " Psychanalysis," pp. 48-54. 

[2541 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

throat. The physician whom she then consulted 
told her that she had a bad case of tonsilitis, 
and that her tonsils would have to be burned 
out. 

Greatly frightened, she had hurried home, re- 
fusing to submit to the operation. In a few days 
the tonsilar symptoms disappeared, and she re- 
turned to work. But she was attacked a second 
time three weeks later, and visited another doc- 
tor, to be informed that her tonsils were so badly 
diseased that it would be well to have them re- 
moved by cutting. 

Again she refused to submit to an operation, 
but the fear of cutting, added to her previous 
fear, now revived, of burning out her tonsils, 
threw her into a highly nervous state. She then 
began to experience an unpleasant stinging, 
tickling feeling in her throat, which she tried to 
remove by hacking. As the tickling continued, 
the hacking became more and more frequent, 
and by the time she came under Doctor Donley's 
observation had taken on the character of a 
" tic," or uncontrollable muscular movement. 

These facts in the early history of the case, 
[255] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

the patient herself remembered only vaguely. 
But she confessed that she was still tormented 
by a haunting fear of a possible future burning 
or cutting of her tonsils. Finding her exceed- 
ingly suggestible, Doctor Donley made no at- 
tempt to hypnotize her. He merely requested 
her to close her eyes, remain perfectly passive, 
and listen attentively to him. 

" She was then told, with much emphasis," he 
says, in describing the treatment, " that her 
tonsils were perfectly healthy, that no cutting 
or burning ever was or ever would be required; 
that the tickling sensation in her throat arose 
from the constant fixation of attention upon this 
part; that she would feel no more desire to hack 
because her supposed reason for hacking had 
ceased to exist, and finally, that when she should 
open her eyes she would feel better than she had 
in a good many years. 

" Much emphasis was placed upon this feeling 
of health, because it was desired to leave her 
on the crest of a pleasurable emotion, which of 
itself has a very great suggestive value. What 
had been predicted in her regard actually oc- 
[256] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

curred. When she sat up, her tic had disappeared, 
and she expressed herself as feeling quite grateful 
and happy. The treatment lasted an hour, and 
except for two slight recurrences easily removed 
by waking suggestion, this patient has had no 
further difficulty." 1 

Unfortunately, such an easy solution of prob- 
lems like this is comparatively rare, particularly 
when, as in this instance, a physical trouble is 
superadded to the mental. Often — a fact which 
cannot be emphasized too strongly — it happens 
that, in dissociational cases, physical symptoms 
so far predominate as to lead to totally wrong 
diagnosis, even by experienced physicians. This 
results, as was hinted above, from the power 
inherent in subconscious " fixed ideas " of pro- 
ducing an endless variety of disturbances simu- 
lating true organic diseases, it may be diseases 
remediable only through surgical operations. 

As a consequence, innumerable operations have 
been performed on patients who should have been 
given, not surgical but psychopathological treat- 
ment. I have in mind as I write a case of this 
1 Quoted from " Psychotherapeutics: A Symposium," p. 152. 

[2571 






ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

kind that was called to my attention by a friend 
who participated in the lamentable affair. 

A middle-aged woman entered one of the 
Boston hospitals and complained of severe ab- 
dominal pains, which she attributed to cancer 
of the stomach or intestines. She was obviously 
greatly frightened, and suffering intense agony. 
A diagnosis of appendicitis was made, and an 
immediate operation deemed imperative. 

But, to the surprise of the surgeons, the ap- 
pendix was found to be in a normal condition. 
At once they directed their attention to the 
other abdominal organs, examining them one 
by one. None showed any sign of disease. Fi- 
nally, with a rueful smile, one of the surgeons 
straightened up, and, touching a finger to his 
head, said: 

" The trouble with this poor woman, gentle- 
men, is here, not in the region that we have been 
exploring. But we should not undeceive her. 
We will remove the appendix, on general prin- 
ciples, and that will probably be all that is needed 
to cure the trouble in her head." 

Under the circumstances, it was excellent ad- 
[258] 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

vice. But how much better it would have been 
for the unfortunate woman, whose life was thus 
endangered by the surgeon's knife, if it had been 
recognized from the beginning that her malady 
was only a " hysterical simulation " of the symp- 
toms of appendicitis. Some day, when physicians 
generally make themselves acquainted with the 
diagnostic methods of psychopathology, blunders 
like this will be, as they ought to be, most ex- 
ceptional. 

In point both of diagnosis and treatment, 
again, psychopathological knowledge is indis- 
pensable to the correct handling of such cases 
as the following, reported by Doctor Janet. 1 
It is, I am ready to concede, an unusual case, 
but it is unusual only because it presents a com- 
plex of symptoms commonly found singly or in 
simpler combination. 

It would be impossible to estimate with any 
accuracy the number of persons who, afflicted 
only in scant degree like this poor Marcelle, 
have been obliged to drag out an existence worse 
than death, either in the care of their friends 
1 In " Nevroses et Idees Fixes," vol. i, pp. 1-68. 

[259] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

or immured in an institution, simply because 
their medical attendants, ignorant of the work- 
ings of the law of dissociation, have been unable 
to fathom the true nature of their ills and adopt 
adequate curative measures. 

Marcelle, as Doctor Janet calls her, was only 
nineteen years old when she began to astonish 
her relatives by developing what they were at 
first disposed to regard as nothing but an eccen- 
tric form of laziness. She would constantly ask 
them to give her objects — a book, her crochet 
work, a plate — which she could easily have got 
for herself by stretching out her hand and pick- 
ing them up. To all expostulations, she would 
calmly reply: 

" I can't help it. I can't use my hands as I 
once did, and that's all there is to it." 

" You can't use your hands! What nonsense! 
You can use them to eat with, well enough, and 
you are crocheting most of the time." 
" Oh, but that's different." 
" What's the difference? Tell us." 
But Marcelle could not, or would not, tell them, 
and from joking with her the family soon passed 
[2601 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

to a state of wrath, endeavoring in every way to 
overcome her " stupid obstinacy." Their anger 
in turn gave way to fear, when, one night, noticing 
a glimmer of light in her room, they entered, and 
found her standing, fully dressed, before the bed. 

" But what is this! " they exclaimed, in amaze- 
ment. " Why don't you get your clothes off 
and go to bed? " 

"Because," she cried, "I can't undress!" 

And, all arguments proving vain, it was neces- 
sary for her sister to disrobe her as though she 
were a tiny child. Next day a consultation was 
held, and it was decided to take her to the Sal- 
petriere. 

" She doesn't seem insane," her mother ex- 
plained, when applying to have her admitted. 
" She talks sensibly about most things. Can it 
be that she is really suffering from some kind 
of paralysis? " 

" Most assuredly," was the reply, " and we will 
do our best to discover what it is and cure it." 

This turned out to be no easy matter. Doctor 
Janet, into whose care she came, had no diffi- 
culty in determining that the specific malady 
[261] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

which afflicted her was an extreme form of 
" aboulia," a disease involving temporary paraly- 
sis of the will, and thereby preventing all mus- 
cular movement. But it was one thing to make a 
diagnosis, and another to effect a cure. 

Presently, too, indications of mental disturb- 
ance developed. Doctor Janet had discovered 
that by distracting her attention he could induce 
her to rise, extend her hands, and perform other 
acts that were impossible to her when she con- 
centrated her attention on them. He utilized 
this as an argument to try and persuade her 
that she could always control her limbs if she 
only made sufficient effort. 

" But you are quite wrong," she calmly in- 
formed him. " I have not left my chair, I have 
not put out my hand." 

" Most assuredly you have. You know very 
well I did not give you that piece of crochet 
work. How, then, does it come into your hands? " 

" I did not pick it up." 

" Who did, then? " 

" Somebody else — somebody acting in me." 

A little later arose another complication. She 
[2621 



DISSOCIATION AND DISEASE 

refused to eat, and it became necessary to ad- 
minister food to her forcibly. She kept saying 
to herself: 

" You must die, you must die as soon as pos- 
sible. You must not eat, you have no need of eat- 
ing. You must not speak, you have no voice, 
you are paralyzed." 

" Why do you say this? " Doctor Janet one 
day asked her. 

" Why do I say what? " 

He repeated her words. 

" But I have said nothing of the sort." 

" Oh, yes, you have." 

" No, no, no — it was not I; it was somebody 
else acting in me." 

Again that phrase — " somebody else acting 
in me." Greatly impressed, Doctor Janet threw 
her into deep hypnosis. Now, an unexpected 
and most pathetic passage of personal history 
came to light. A year before, Marcelle had had 
a secret love affair, her lover had deserted her, 
she had determined to commit suicide. Failing 
to do this, she had, none the less — overwhelmed 
by the shock of the desertion, and giving herself 
[2631 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

wholly to grief and chagrin, which she felt obliged 
to allow no one to perceive — gradually passed 
into a dissociated, dreamlike state, in which she 
subconsciously pictured herself to herself either 
as no longer existing or as about to perish. 

Hence her " aboulia," hence the " somebody 
else acting in me," hence the refusal to take food. 
To Doctor Janet the situation was now almost 
as clear as the light of day — so, likewise, was the 
course which he would need to follow to restore 
the sufferer to her " real self," and rid her of all 
disease symptoms. 

The dissociation, to put it briefly, had in this 
case been so complete as to cause an actual dis- 
ruption of the sense of personality. Nor is this 
malady of " loss of personality " as rare as one 
might be tempted to think. I could mention 
many cases not unlike that of Marcelle's, and 
some far surpassing it in astounding develop- 
ments. There is, for example, the singular case 
of BCA. But this is so remarkable, so weirdly 
fascinating, and so instructive that it deserves 
to be treated, as I shall treat it in the next chap- 
ter, entirely by itself. 

[2641 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

DURING his long career as a specialist in the 
treatment of nervous and mental diseases, 
Doctor Morton Prince, the celebrated Boston 
psychopathologist, has been called upon to deal 
with many puzzling human riddles, and to solve 
mysteries which, in their way, have been quite 
as complicated and baffling as any that ever 
taxed the ingenuity of that most ingenious of 
story-book detectives, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. 
In fact, some of the problems laid before the 
New England specialist surpass even the most 
astonishing of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 
thus proving once more that truth is stranger 
than fiction. This particularly applies to the 
BCA affair. 

In the beginning, however, there was nothing 
in the BCA affair to suggest to Doctor Prince 
that it had features which would test to the 
f 285 1 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

utmost his psychopathological skill. It opened 
in a prosaic, matter-of-fact way, with the ar- 
rival at his office of a young woman who wished 
to be treated for what she described as a " nerv- 
ous breakdown." The story she told was a sad 
one, but he had heard many quite like it before, 
and it did not impress him as involving anything 
out of the ordinary. 

" My trouble," she said, in describing the 
evolution of her malady, " began when my 
husband was attacked with an incurable disease. 
For four years my life was altogether given up 
to caring for him, striving to make him as com- 
fortable as possible, and endeavoring to conceal 
from him my grief and anxiety. You can imagine 
the strain put upon me all that time. Finally 
he died, under circumstances that caused me a 
great shock. 

" Within less than a week after his death, I 
lost twenty pounds in weight. For nearly three 
months I ate scarcely anything, and did not 
average more than three or four hours' sleep out 
of the twenty-four. I was depressed, over- 
whelmed; felt that I had lost all that made life 
[2661 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

worth living; and, in short, wished to die. I 
became highly nervous, tired easily, and suffered 
almost constantly from headaches. 

" This went on for many months. Then there 
came a period of temporary recovery. Strangely 
enough, it followed an occurrence that brought 
to me suddenly a realization that my position 
in life was entirely changed, that I was quite 
alone, desolate, and helpless. For a few minutes 
these ideas flashed through my mind, and then 
all seemed changed. I no longer minded what, a 
moment before, had caused me so much distress; 
and, what is more, I immediately began to im- 
prove in health, until I was able to mingle with 
my friends, take long walks, go driving, and 
really enjoy life as I had formerly done. Alas, 
there soon was a relapse, and now I am feeling 
worse than ever." 

Listening to her recital, and examining care- 
fully her mental and physical condition, Doctor 
Prince felt justified in assuring her that there 
was nothing seriously the matter, and that he 
would ere long have her on the highway to health. 
In fact, he regarded her case as one presenting 
[267] 



ADVENTUMNGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia, 
characterized by persistent fatigue and the usual 
somatic symptoms, and by moral doubts and 
scruples"; and planned a course of treatment 
which he expected would speedily result in a 
cure. It was, to describe it briefly, treatment by 
hypnotic suggestion - — a method often employed 
by psychopathologists in handling cases of neu- 
rasthenia, for they have discovered that it is 
perfectly feasible to " suggest away " the fatigue, 
insomnia, and other symptoms connected with 
this widespread and distressing malady. 

The use of hypnotism in the present instance, 
though, was attended by consequences vastly 
different from any Doctor Prince had anticipated, 
since it revealed to him that his patient was, in 
reality, suffering from something infinitely more 
serious than ordinary neurasthenia, and in- 
finitely more difficult to overcome. Put into 
the hypnotic state, her ills, to Doctor Prince's 
amazement, disappeared as though by a miracle. 
Her whole expression was altered. She looked, 
and declared that she felt, entirely well. It was 
hard to believe that this radiant, vigorous, 
[268] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

brightly smiling woman was the one who had 
entered his office so short a time before, a typical 
nervous wreck, her features haggard and care- 
worn, her eyes dull and heavy, her hands trem- 
bling. And, most astonishing of all, the hypno- 
tized patient herself insisted that, in a very literal 
sense, she was not the same person. 

The tone, the language, the manner — all 
were changed. Struck with sudden apprehension, 
Doctor Prince quickly brought her out of hypno- 
sis. Immediately there was another transforma- 
tion, and she was neurasthenic once more, with- 
out the slightest remnant of the strength, inde- 
pendence, and self-assertiveness she had just 
been displaying. Nor, although she was sharply 
questioned, could she remember anything she 
had said while hypnotized; still, this proved 
nothing, for it is seldom that what goes on during 
hypnosis is recalled in the waking state. 

But, comparing her latest declarations with 
her prior account of the course her malady had 
run, Doctor Prince could not help asking himself 
whether she might not actually be a victim of 
what is technically designated " total dissocia- 
[2691 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

tion of personality," whether the second emo- 
tional shock of which she had spoken, acting 
on a system already disorganized by the severe 
and prolonged strain imposed upon her by her 
husband's illness, might not have resulted in a 
psychical upheaval so catastrophic as to involve 
the disintegration of her ego, or " self," and the 
creation of a secondary self markedly differing 
from her original personality. 

In such an event, the period of temporary re- 
covery would, indeed, represent a period when 
the secondary self had obtained at least partial 
control of the patient's organism; and it was 
quite conceivable that there might come a time 
when, momentarily, at any rate, the secondary 
self would become wholly dominant. In that 
case, the young woman's plight would be appall- 
ing, for she would be in ignorance of all she said 
and did while in the secondary state. This was 
precisely what occurred. 

Only a few days after she had first visited him, 
she came into Doctor Prince's office in a greatly 
excited condition. 

" Doctor," she cried, " the strangest, the most 
[270] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

inexplicable thing has happened to me! This 
morning, after breakfast, I went up-stairs, in- 
tending to lie down for a time, as I felt so utterly 
exhausted. I think I fell asleep, but am not sure. 
I do know, though, that two hours afterward I 
found myself standing in the post-office, about 
to mail to you a letter which I am certain I did 
not write, but which is plainly in my hand- 
writing. It is such a queer letter, too, for it 
speaks of matters of which I know nothing, and 
even refers to me as though I were somebody else, 
and somebody else were I. What does this 
mean? What does it mean? " 

And, in a day or so, she had an even stranger 
story to relate. 

'* Yesterday afternoon," she said, " I went for 
a walk, not because I wanted to, but because 
you had told me that I ought to take some exercise. 
I returned home about four o'clock, and went 
straight to my room. I remember nothing of 
what then happened until, in the evening, I 
suddenly became aware that I was at a gay 
dinner party, drinking wine — which is contrary 
to my principles — and, what was far worse, 
[2711 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

smoking a cigarette. Never in my life had I 
done such a thing, and my humiliation at the 
discovery was deep and keen. 

" I assure you, on my honor, that I have not 
the least recollection of accepting an invitation 
to dine out, of dressing for dinner, or of leaving 
the house to attend the party. Everything is a 
blank to me from the moment I went to my 
room, in the afternoon, until I came to my senses, 
several hours afterward, to find a lively group 
about me, a wineglass at my plate, and a half- 
smoked cigarette in my fingers. Tell me, Doctor 
Prince, am I going insane? " 

The physician hastened to reassure her, but 
nevertheless he felt seriously alarmed. It was 
evident that she was in a thoroughly dissociated 
condition, and that she had become, so to speak, 
a battleground on which was to be fought out 
the weirdest and most uncanny of conflicts — 
a duel between two separate selves for absolute 
supremacy in the use of the organs of her body. 

Further, it soon developed that the advantage 
would lie with the secondary self — which Doctor 
Prince called her B self — because, although her 
[272] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

ordinary, or A self, suffered from amnesia, or 

loss of memory, regarding her actions when in 

the B state, the B self had a memory extending 

over both states. The mental agony growing out 

of this recurring forgetfulness on A's part may 

readily be imagined. As the patient herself has 

since expressed it, in an autobiographical account 

written at Doctor Prince's request : * 

" The amnesia made life very difficult; indeed, 

except for the help you gave me, I think it would 

have been impossible, and that I should have 

gone truly mad. How can I describe or give any 

clear idea of what it is to wake suddenly, as it 

were, and not to know the day of the week, the 

time of the day, or why one is in a given position? 

I would come to myself as A, perhaps on the 

street, with no idea of where I had been, or 

where I was going; fortunate if I found myself 

alone, for if I was carrying on a conversation I 

knew nothing of what it had been; fortunate, in- 

1 This autobiographical account was first published in the 
Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Afterwards it was brought 
out in book form by Richard G. Badger, the Boston publisher, 
under the title, " My Life as a Dissociated Personality," and 
with an introduction by Doctor Prince. It is an account well 
worth reading by all students of psychology. 

[273] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

deed, in that case, if I did not contradict some- 
thing I had said, for, as B, my attitude toward 
all things was quite the opposite of that taken 
by A." 

Picture to yourself, my reader, how you would 
feel if, for a few hours almost every day, and 
sometimes for whole days at a stretch, you be- 
came virtually nonexistent, yet were made to 
realize, from what your friends told you, that a 
something or a somebody had taken possession 
of your organism, and was veritably acting in 
your place, and in a way utterly unlike your 
natural self. This was the state of affairs with 
Doctor Prince's luckless patient. In moods, 
tastes, points of view, habits of thought, and 
controlling ideas, her secondary personality was 
the very reverse of that which had been dominant 
when she first sought medical advice. 

There even were pronounced physical differ- 
ences. Whenever she was in the A state, she 
was extremely neurasthenic, being afflicted now 
by one, now by another, of the multifarious 
functional disturbances that accompany neu- 
rasthenia, and being exhausted by the slightest 
[274] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

effort. A walk of a few hundred yards would be 
almost enough to prostrate her. 

In the B state, on the contrary, she did not 
know the meaning of the word " pain," and was 
seemingly incapable of feeling fatigue. She 
would walk for miles without experiencing the 
slightest distress, was constantly on the go, and 
appeared to be in every way an exceptionally 
robust, healthy woman. Thus, physically, she 
was — as B — a decided improvement over her- 
self as A. But with respect to psychical differ- 
ences it was altogether another matter. 

In the A state, she was kind, considerate of 
others, self-sacrificing, animated by a keen sense 
of, and devotion to, duty; profoundly stirred by 
any tale of sorrow or suffering, and most con- 
scientious — if anything, overconscientious, being 
tortured at times in an extraordinary degree by 
moral doubts. In the B state, she was selfish, 
thoughtless, and cold; one might almost say de- 
void of human feeling. Here is the way she 
herself has put it: 

" As B, I felt no emotion, except that of pleas- 
ure, using the word pleasure as meaning a * good 
[275] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

time ' — social gayety, driving, motoring, walk- 
ing, boating, etc.; but my enjoyment of these 
things was very keen. As B, I was always the 
gayest of the company, but for people I cared 
nothing. The little acts of affection which we all 
perform in daily home life I never thought of. 
The habit of shaking hands with one's friends, 
kissing or embracing those nearer and dearer, 
had no meaning to me. Ordinarily, I think, 
when one shakes hands with a friend, one feels 
the individuality of the person, more or less, and 
the clasp of hands means something; but, as B, 
it meant no more to me than clasping a piece 
of wood, and the acts of shaking hands, embracing, 
or kissing were all alike — it made no difference 
to me which I did — one meant just as much as 
the other. This lack of feeling applied only to 
people, for I loved the outside world; the trees, 
the water, the sky, and the wind seemed to be 
a very part of myself. But the emotions by 
which as A I was torn to shreds, as B I did not 
feel at all." 

In still further contrast, this most remarkable 
young woman, when in the B state, was giddy, 
[ 276 ] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

irresponsible, and frivolous. In the A state, 
she was most serious-minded and intellectual, 
being fond of reading such excellent literature as 
the works of Shakespeare, Hugo, Ibsen, Tolstoi, 
and Maeterlinck. All this, B found very tiresome, 
and cared only for the lightest kind of fiction, when 
she read at all. 

In matters of dress and social pleasures, A 
and B were also diametrically opposed. A be- 
lieved that she ought to wear black; B, who seems 
never to have given a thought to the dead hus- 
band, detested black, and, on the other hand, had 
a really abnormal liking for white. So that, as 
the two selves alternated in control, the strange 
spectacle was presented of the same woman at 
one moment arrayed in deep mourning, at an- 
other dressed in some light, bright gown. 

To cap the climax, B took a malicious pleasure 
in tormenting her other self in many ways. She 
made engagements which she knew that, as A, 
she would not like to keep; she cultivated friend- 
ships with people with whom, as A, she had little 
desire to associate; she was wastefully extrava- 
gant, freely spending on useless articles money 
[277] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

which, as A, she had been carefully hoarding 
against a rainy day; she indulged in innumerable 
petty, but annoying, practical jokes at A's ex- 
pense. 

For example: A would often wake in the 
morning to find on her pillow or dressing-table 
notes advising her jeeringly to " cheer up," to 
" weep no more," and not to " bother Doctor 
Prince so much." These notes she herself had 
written during the night, having changed to the 
B state while she slept, awakened as B, risen, 
and penned the notes, and then returned to bed, 
to fall asleep once more, and, in the morning, 
awake as A, with no memory of what she had 
done since retiring. 

The flood of notes continuing, she began to 
destroy them unread, hoping that this would 
discourage B's malicious activity. It only made 
matters worse, for B now began to affix the notes 
to the center of her mirror, pasting above them 
inscriptions warning her to be sure to read them, 
and declaring that they contained — as they 
sometimes did — information of importance to 
her. 

[278] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

But the best idea of the topsyturvy, kaleido- 
scopic, almost incredible life led by this woman 
with a double existence may be given by quoting 
a few extracts from a diary kept jointly by the 
two personalities, at Doctor Prince's suggestion. 
Unique as a record of human experiences, it had 
a distinctly practical value, for it enabled A 
to keep track of what she had been doing while B 
was in control. B, of course, had no need of it 
for this purpose, since, as was said, she did not 
suffer from loss of memory, like A. The extracts 
quoted are not always in chronological order; 
but, for the present purpose, that is unimpor- 
tant: 

" I am here again to-night, B, I am. I may as 
well tell all I have done, I suppose. For one 
thing, I had a facial massage — there is no need 
of being a mass of wrinkles. I know A doesn't 
care how she looks, but I do. The Q's spent the 
evening here, and I smoked a cigarette. Now, A, 
don't go and tell Doctor Prince; you don't have 
to tell him everything — you do it, though. I 
must have a little fun." 

" I have struggled through another day. B 
[279] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

has told what she did. How can I bear it? How 
explain? I am so humiliated, so ashamed. Why 
should I do things which so mortify my pride? 
Quite ill all day. I am, as usual, paying for B's 
* fun.' It is not to be borne." 

" A terrible day — one of the worst for a long 
time. I cannot live this way; it is not to be 
expected. I am so confused. I have lost so 
much time now that I can't seem to catch up. 
What is the end to be? What will become of 
me? " 

" A was used up, and had to stay in bed all 
the morning, but I came about one o'clock, 
and Mrs< X asked me to motor down to Z. Had 
a gorgeous ride, and got home at seven, nearly 
famished, for A had eaten nothing all day — 
she lives on coffee and somnos — nice com- 
bination ! — steak and French fried for mine, 
please." 

"Good gracious! How we fly around! A 
has been ill all the day, could not sleep last night. 
I hope he [Doctor Prince] won't send for us, for 
he will put a quietus on me, and, as things are 
now, I am gaining on A. Had a gay evening — 
[280] 






THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

no discussions of religion or psychology, no dis- 
secting of hearts and souls while I am in the 
flesh." 

" I wonder if A is really dead — for good and 
all? It seems like it. The thought rather 
frightens me some way, as if I had lost my bal- 
ance wheel. She wants to die, she really does, 
for she thinks it to herself all the time. I wish I 
were myself alone, and neither A nor B; I can- 
not bear to hear A groan, she cannot bear my 
glee." 

" Such a day ! A got away from me for a little 
while, and tried to write a letter to Doctor Prince. 
It was a funny-looking letter, for I kept saying to 
her: * You cannot write, you cannot move your 
hand,' but she had enough will power to write 
some, and direct it. The effort used her up, 
however, and I came, and the letter was not 
mailed." 

" I am too much bewildered to write. I have 
succeeded in writing Doctor Prince. If I can 
only mail it! Oh, but I am tired! Such an awful 
struggle! " 

" Another queer thing happened to-day. I 
[281] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

have not been to the cemetery for a long time, 
so started to go there. I had gone only a little 
way when I began to feel that I could not go on. 
I do not mean that I did not wish to, but that I 
could not easily move my feet in that direction. 
It was as if some physical force was restraining 
me, or like walking against a heavy wind. I 
kept on, however, and finally reached the en- 
trance; but farther I found it impossible to go. 
I was held — could not move my feet one inch 
in that direction. I set my will, and said to my- 
self: 'I will go, I can go, and I will!' But I 
could not do it. I began to feel very tired — 
exhausted — and turned back. As soon as I 
turned away, I had no trouble in walking, but 
I was very tired." 

These last paragraphs refer to a phase of the 
case which was, from the standpoint both of the 
patient and Doctor Prince, one of its most serious 
and mysterious features. Although B, try as she 
might — and she undoubtedly tried hard enough 
— could not permanently oust the A self, and 
had to be content with manifesting as an alter- 
nating personality, it was none the less the fact 
[2821 






THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

that, even when A was uppermost, B was able 
to exercise, from some subconscious region, a 
certain amount of influence, often impelling A 
to do things contrary to her inclinations. 

The consequence was that A suffered fearfully 
from what seemed to be aboulia, or paralysis of 
will, somewhat similar to that experienced by 
Doctor Pierre Janet's patient, Marcelle, de- 
scribed in the preceding chapter. The cemetery 
episode was only one of many incidents, when, 
overpowered by some force she could not under- 
stand, and which was actually the superior will 
of B, she was unable to carry out projects she 
wished to execute, or was made to perform acts 
not at all to her liking. 

The diary is full of allusions to this subcon- 
scious mastery of A by B. Scores of times, B 
influenced her to read some particular book she 
— B — wished to read, or to go out for a walk 
when she — A — wished to remain at home. 
Naturally A began to consider herself change- 
able and weak-minded. 

" One day," B writes, " it was raining and 
she did not want to go out, but I felt that I could 
[2831 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

not stay in the house another minute. So I 
willed that she should go to walk, and she changed 
her clothes and went out. She thought: ' What 
nonsense this is to go out in this rain! I wish 
I knew what I wanted to do five minutes at a 
time.' She would think: * I guess I will go to 
walk.' And then she would think: ' No, I don't 
want to go out in all this rain.' Then, in a few 
minutes: s I believe I will go to walk,' etc. And 
finally she went, more for peace of mind than 
anything else." 

Frequently, moreover, the subconscious willing 
to affect A's conduct, resulted in completely 
effacing A, and allowing B to reemerge sponta- 
neously, in full control. 

Thus, there was a dinner party which B was 
anxious to attend, but while A was dressing she 
— A — decided she would not go, and started 
across the room to telephone and say she would 
not be present. At once B subconsciously began 
to think: " I want to go," " You must go." 
And poor A first became very much confused, 
then faded away entirely, with the result that 
the telephone message was not sent, and B was 
[284] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

free to attend the party, and enjoy another of 
the " good times " that meant so much to 
her. 

Where A suffered most of all by reason of this 
subtle power of B to influence her actions, lay 
in the difficulty she had in communicating with 
Doctor Prince, and in going to him for treatment. 
B well knew that her career would come to an 
end the moment Doctor Prince succeeded in re- 
associating his patient's disintegrated personality, 
and she fought desperately to preserve her ex- 
istence, repeatedly preventing A, as mentioned 
in the extracts quoted from the diary, from tele- 
phoning to Doctor Prince, writing to him, or 
visiting him; all of which greatly increased A's 
confusion, misery, and unhappiness. 

But, as it chanced, although Doctor Prince 
was earnestly desirous of effectually and forever 
suppressing B, he was not at all desirous of doing 
this for A's sake; and was, in fact, as anxious 
to get rid of A as he was to get rid of B. 

For, to inject a new complication into this 
most complicated affair, he had by this time 
discovered that A had no more right to considera- 
[2851 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

tion than B, since A no more than B represented 
the patient's normal personality. His searching 
stndy of the case — the duel between A and B 
lasted a year or more — had convinced him that 
there had been not a single, but a double, disso- 
ciation of personality; and that the normal self, 
in consequence first of the shock occasioned by 
the husband's illness and death, and afterward 
of the shock that brought the B personality to 
the fore, had been violently relegated to some 
obscure department of the patient's subconscious- 
ness, where, however, it assuredly was existent, 
and where it was an intensely interested, if help- 
less, spectator of the struggle being waged for 
control by the two usurping selves. 

To recall this lost self, which he designated as 
C, was Doctor Prince's paramount object; and, 
after many months of weary and futile effort, he 
ultimately succeeded. One day, after he had 
plunged his patient into deep hypnosis, he saw 
that she had undergone a striking change. Phys- 
ically she seemed much as in the B state, though 
not so boisterously vigorous; mentally she was 
like A, thoughtful and intellectual, but happily 
[286] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

devoid of the vacillation and morbid overcon- 
scientiousness that had made A's life a misery to 
herself, and most difficult to all who came in 
contact with her. 

Questioned, she showed that in this new state 
she possessed a complete memory for both the 
A and the B states, and was closer to nor- 
mal than either. In Doctor Prince's mind, no 
doubt remained — he had found C, the missing 
self, the self which, after nearly two years of 
exile, had promise of coming once more into its 
own. 

It had yet to be reestablished in sovereignty 
— no easy task, as the event proved. Not many 
hours after its first emergence, B once more put 
in an appearance, wrathful, vehement, and de- 
fiant, angrily challenging Doctor Prince to sup- 
press it if he could. Then came A, and soon a 
momentary return of C, quickly put to flight, 
however, by the still powerful will of B. In 
short, the conflict now became triangular, with 
B and C active opponents, and A a participant 
because she could not help herself. 

The invaluable diary affords a clear view of 
[287] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

the chaos that prevailed, and of the increasing 
effectiveness of Doctor Prince's vigorous re- 
enforcement, by hypnotic suggestion, of the 
claims of C. We find, for instance, B lamenting, 
after several days' banishment: 

" Well, once more I am permitted to write in 
this diary. After we got home, C went to pieces. 
I never saw such a lot! And then poor old A 
came again, in anguish, wringing of hands, finally 
tears. Then, thank goodness, I came myself! 
I cannot see why Doctor Prince would rather 
have that emotional, hysterical set than to have 
me! It passes comprehension. I know every- 
thing, always, and they know only a few things 
for a few minutes." 

The note of woe and panic sounded here was 
amply justified. Little by little, A and B became 
less in evidence, until at length they were heard 
from no more, and C — the normal self — was 
left dominant, with a complete restoration to 
physical as well as mental health. 

But, the reader may well ask, what does all 
this mean? Can there really be more than one 
self, one personality, in human beings? If so, 
[288] 



THE SINGULAR CASE OF BCA 

what are we? What is the true nature of man? 
These are questions that cannot be avoided, and 
in my next and closing chapter I will make some 
attempt to answer them. 



[289 



CHAPTER IX 

THE LARGER SELF 

IT is barely fifty years since the problem of 
supreme interest to mankind — the problem 
of the nature, possibilities, and destiny of man 
— began to be studied in a really scientific way; 
yet in that half century more progress has been 
made toward its solution than in all the previous 
thousands of years that have elapsed since man 
first asked himself: What am I? What are my 
capabilities? Shall I be, after I have ceased to 
exist here on earth? 

Armed with instruments of the most delicate 
precision, devising novel methods for exploring 
the body and the mind in their mutual ramifica- 
tions, modern investigators have thrown a flood 
of new and largely unexpected light on the great 
questions at issue, and have opened vistas of 
hope and aspiration and actual achievement 
[290] 



THE LARGER SELF 

undreamed of by the vanished peoples of bygone 
times. 

At first sight, to be sure, much of their effort 
appears to be irreparably, even wantonly, de- 
structive, and perhaps nowhere more so than in 
the blows they have dealt at the traditional 
conception of the central fact in man's psychical 
make-up — that intangible entity variously known 
as the ego, the self, the personality, animated 
and governed by an indwelling, unifying prin- 
ciple, the soul. Every man instinctively believes 
that there is only one of him. He feels that, no 
matter how his thoughts, his sensations, his 
emotions may change in the course of time, he 
himself will remain essentially and permanently 
the same. Putting this belief into metaphysical 
language, he declares, with the excellent Thomas 
Reid: 

" The conviction which every man has of his 
identity . . . needs no aid of philosophy to 
strengthen it; and no philosophy can weaken it 
without first producing some degree of insanity. 
. . . The identity of a person is a perfect identity; 
wherever it is real it admits of no degrees; and 
[291] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

it is impossible that a person should be in part 
the same and in part different, because a person 
is a monad, and is not divisible into parts." x 

But the modern explorer of the nature of man, 
replies : 

' 6 You are wrong, my friend. Your self is very 
far from being the simple, stable unity that you 
imagine it to be. In reality it is most complex 
and most unstable, easily breaking up, and some- 
times breaking up so completely that it may even 
be replaced by an entirely new self. You do not 
believe this? I can prove it to you from the 
facts not only of scientific experiment, but also 
of everyday observation." 

Naturally, in support of this statement, stress 
would be laid on instances resembling the strange 
case of BCA, just narrated. And although cases 
at all similar to the BCA affair are extremely un- 
common there are a number on record evidencing 
in other ways so-called " total dissociation of 
personality." For example: 

A prosperous Philadelphia plumber, a man of 

1 Thomas Reid's " Essay on the Intellectual Powers of 
Man," pp. 228-231 (James Walker's edition of 1850). 

[2921 



THE LARGER SELF 

exemplary habits and seemingly in good health, 
left his home one day to take a short walk. From 
that moment he disappeared as completely as 
though the earth had opened and swallowed him. 
There was no reason why he should abscond or 
commit suicide, and the general belief was that 
he had met with foul play. Rewards were offered, 
and detectives employed, but no trace of him 
could be found. His wife, giving him up for 
dead, sold his business and removed with their 
children to Chicago. 

Nearly two years later, the workmen in a tin- 
shop in a Southern city were startled one morning 
by the conduct of one of their number, who, 
dropping his tools and pressing his hand to his 
head in a bewildered way, sprang to his feet, and 
cried : 

"My God! Where am I? How did I get 
here? This isn't my shop! " 

The foreman, thinking he was drunk, or had 
gone insane, ran forward to pacify him. 

"Steady, Smith, steady!" he exclaimed. 
" You'll be all right in a minute." 

The other only stared at him wildly. 
[293] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" Why do you call me Smith? " he demanded. 
" That isn't my name." 

" That's the name you've gone by since you 
came among us six months ago." 

"Six months ago! You're crazy, man. It 
isn't half an hour since I left my wife and little 
ones to get a breath of fresh air before dinner." 

" Look here," said the foreman, pressing him 
gently into a seat, " where do you suppose you 
are, anyway? " 

" Why, in Philadelphia, of course." 

It was indeed the Philadelphia plumber, whose 
missing self had returned to him as suddenly and 
as mysteriously as it had vanished. A few days 
more and he was happily reunited with the 
family that had so long believed him to be among 
the dead. 1 

Where, it may well be asked, was this man's 
original self during these two years? What had 
become of his normal ego, the ego of which alone 
he had formerly been aware? Yet at no time 

1 Boris Sidis's " Multiple Personality," pp. 365-368. This 
book, by one of the foremost American psychopathologists, 
should be read by all students of abnormal psychology. 

[2941 



THE LARGER SELF 

throughout the period when he lacked knowledge 
of his identity, and was without memory for his 
earlier life and social relationships, did he display 
the slightest sign of mental aberration. He was 
as sane and real to himself and to those with 
whom he came into contact, and was as able to 
take care of himself and earn a sufficient living, 
as he had ever been in the years before he ex- 
perienced the remarkable psychical upheaval 
that had substituted an alien, a " secondary " 
self in the place of the self he had always been 
and known. 

A blow, an illness, a fright, the stress of a pro- 
longed emotion — any one of several causes may 
bring about this weird condition, of which I could 
give illustrative cases to a number that would 
fill many pages of this book. 1 Sometimes, though 
fortunately seldom, there may be — as in the 
case of BCA — a double or even a multiple dis- 
sociation, resulting in the development of two, 
three, four, or more secondary selves, which 
alternate with one another in a way productive 

1 A collection of such cases will be found in my book, " Scien- 
tific Mental Healing," pp. 124-155. 

[295] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 



of the most intense mental agony to the helpless 
victim. 

But, after all, it is not necessary to insist on 
such extreme instances in order to demonstrate 
the essential instability and divisibility of that 
which we commonly have in mind when we speak 
of the " self." Dissociation of personality is in 
evidence every day in the pathetic symptoma- 
tology of the various insanities, and in the chronic, 
if often masked and unrecognized, memory lapses 
universal among sufferers from the manifold 
affections of hysteria, such as we dealt with in 
the chapter on " Dissociation and Disease." It 
is in evidence in the victims of alcoholic and drug 
excesses, who, in a very literal sense, may be- 
come " another person," and say and do things 
quite alien from their usual self, and concerning 
which their usual self afterward has no knowledge. 

Even normal sleep, albeit a wise provision 
for the rest and strengthening of the organism, 
involves dissociation. Still more strikingly is 
dissociation evident in the phenomena of the 
state of artificial sleep induced by hypnotism. 

It would carry us too far from the point now 
[296] 



THE LARGER SELF 

under consideration to enter here into any dis- 
cussion of the nature and mechanism of hypno- 
tism, that still widely misunderstood but mar- 
velous agency, not simply for therapeutic pur- 
poses, but for the study and exploration of man's 
inmost being. The thing of immediate impor- 
tance is the fact that under the influence of 
hypnotism a person invariably develops a self 
more or less different from his ordinary waking, 
conscious self. 

Hypnotized, he is to all outward seeming 
oblivious to everything transpiring around him. 
But let the hypnotist speak to him, question 
him, and he instantly responds with answers so 
intelligent as to indicate that, in some respects, 
at all events, he is more alert and keen than when 
wide awake. Curiously enough, however, com- 
mands and suggestions given to him are, within 
certain limitations, accepted and acted upon, 
no matter how disagreeable or absurd they may 
be. 

Later, when awakened, he is in precisely the 
same position as are victims of spontaneous dis- 
sociation — such as the Philadelphia plumber, 
[2971 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

and Doctor Prince's puzzling neurasthene, BCA. 
That is to say, he is unable to give any account 
of what he has said and done during hypnosis. 
Thus the effect of hypnotism is to produce a 
psychical cleavage so profound as to involve 
the action, within a single organism, of two 
separate selves. 

This has been demonstrated by a long line of 
scientific investigators, including physicians and 
psychologists of international reputation. More- 
over, these investigators have shown that, even 
after a person has been brought out of the hyp- 
notic state, the self evoked by hypnotism may in 
some inscrutable way continue operant without 
his suspecting for a moment its existence and 
influence. 

Impressive proof of this is found in the execu- 
tion of what are known as post-hypnotic com- 
mands. A hypnotized person is told that, after 
being de-hypnotized, he is to perform a certain 
act on receiving a certain signal, or at the expira- 
tion of a certain time. As usual, when restored 
to his conscious, waking state, he remembers 
nothing of the command imposed on him; but 
[298] 



THE LARGER SELF 

when the signal is given, or the appointed 
time arrives, he feels an irresistible, and to 
him inexplicable, impulse to carry out the sug- 
gested idea. 

Thus, in one series of fifty-five experiments 
made by the foremost English authority on 
hypnotism, Doctor J. Milne Bramwell, the sub- 
ject, a young woman of nineteen, was ordered 
to perform a specified act at the end of a varying 
number of minutes, ranging from three hundred 
to more than twenty thousand. Not once, on 
being de-hypnotized, did she remember what she 
had been told to do, although offered a liberal 
reward if she could recall the commands given 
her, 

Nevertheless, only two of the fifty-five experi- 
ments were complete failures, while in forty-five 
she executed the commands at exactly the mo- 
ment designated, and in the remainder was at no 
time more than five minutes out of the way. As 
to the complete failures, Doctor Bramwell as- 
certained that in one instance she had mistaken 
the suggestion given, and in the other the cir- 
cumstances were such that the command might 
[299] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

have been executed without his being aware 
of it. 1 

Equally astonishing results are reported by 
the brilliant group of Frenchmen who, uniting 
under the direction of Doctor A. A. Liebeault, 
were the first to make an organized investigation 
of the cause and effects, the possibilities and 
limitations, of hypnotism. One of these French 
investigators, Doctor Hippolyte Bernheim, once 
hypnotized an old soldier, and asked him: 

" On what day in the first week of October 
will you be at liberty? " 

" On the Wednesday." 

" Well," said Doctor Bernheim, " on that day 
you will pay a visit to Doctor Liebeault; you 
will find in his office the president of the republic, 
who will present you with a medal and a pen- 
sion." 

The soldier was then awakened and questioned 
as to what had been said to him, but could re- 
member nothing. However, on Wednesday, Octo- 



1 These experiments by Doctor Bramwell were first reported 
by him in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
vol. xii, pp. 176-203. 



[300] 



THE LARGER SELF 

ber 3, Doctor Liebeault wrote to Doctor Bern- 
heim: 

" Your soldier has just called at my house. He 
walked to my bookcase, and made a respectful 
salute; then I heard him utter the words: ' Your 
excellency! ' Soon he held out his right hand, 
and said: 'Thanks, your excellency.' I asked 
him to whom he was speaking. ' Why, to the 
president of the republic.' He turned again to 
the bookcase and saluted, then went away. 
The witnesses to the scene naturally asked me 
what that madman was doing. I answered that 
he was not mad, but as reasonable as they or I, 
only another person was acting in him." x 

Compare with this an amusing little story told 
by Doctor Prince. 

" Wishing to test the compelling influence of 
post-hypnotic commands," he says, 2 " I sug- 
gested to one of my subjects, Mrs. R., after she 
was hypnotized, that on the following day, when 
she went down to dinner, she would put on her 
bonnet, and keep it on during the whole of dinner 



" De la Suggestion dans l'Etat Hypnotique," p. 29. 
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. cxxii, p. 463. 

[301] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

time. The next day I received a letter from her 
in which she said: 

" ' I think I am getting insane. At dinner time 
I would wear my hat during the meal.' 

" On further inquiry, I obtained the following 
story, which I give substantially in the original 
language: 

" ' As I was going in to dinner, my girl asked 
me what I was going out for. " I am not," says 
I. " I am going to eat my dinner." " Then 
what have you got your hat on for? " says she. I 
put my hand to my head, and there was my 
bonnet. " Lord, Mamie! " says I, " am I going 
crazy? " " No, mother," she says, " you often 
do foolish things." I began to get frightened, 
but took off my bonnet and went into the next 
room to dinner.' 

" Then the younger child similarly asked her 
where she was going, and called attention to 
her having her bonnet on. A second time she 
raised her hand to her head, and to her surprise 
found that her bonnet was really there. She 
again took it off, and later, when her husband 
entered, the same thing was repeated; but when 
[302] 






THE LARGER SELF 

she found her bonnet on her head for the third 
time, she made excuse of the stormy words that 
ensued to declare she would * keep it on now till 
she was through.' After dinner, being alarmed, 
she consulted a neighbor about it." 

But the longest time on record for the carrying 
out of a post-hypnotic suggestion was made by 
a subject of Doctor Liegeois, another of the early 
French investigators. Doctor Liegeois hypno- 
tized a young man, and said to him : 

" A year from to-day this is what you are going 
to do, and what you are going to see: You will 
call at Doctor Liebeault's office in the morning, 
and tell him that you have come to thank him 
and Doctor Liegeois for all they have done to 
improve your health. While you are talking to 
him, you will see enter the room a dog with a 
monkey riding on its back. They will perform 
a thousand tricks that will amuse you very much. 

" Then you will see a man come in, leading a 
great American grizzly bear, which will also 
perform tricks. It will be a tame bear, so that 
you will not be at all frightened. The man will 
be delighted at recovering his trained dog and 
[303] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

monkey, which he thought he had lost. Before 
he leaves you will borrow a few cents from Doctor 
Liebeault to give to him." 

Doctor Liegeois, after repeating these com- 
plicated and absurd directions, awoke the young 
man, and by cautious questioning ascertained 
that his memory was a perfect blank for all that 
had been said to him while he was hypnotized. 
Great care was taken not to recall to his mind 
at any time the command given to him, and which 
his hypnotic self was expected to remember and 
perform on the appointed day. 

Exactly a year later, at nine in the morning, 
Doctor Liegeois went to Doctor Liebeault's 
office, where he waited half an hour, and then 
returned home, thinking that the experiment had 
failed. But at ten minutes to ten the young man 
arrived. There was nothing about his appear- 
ance to indicate that he was in any abnormal 
condition. 

He greeted Doctor Liebeault, explained that he 

had come to thank him for his kindness to him, 

and inquired for Doctor Liegeois, whom he said 

he had expected to find there. A few minutes 

[3041 



THE LARGER SELF 

afterward, Doctor Liegeois having meanwhile 
been hastily summoned, the young man cried 
out that a monkey had just come in, riding on 
the back of a dog. He watched the antics of these 
imaginary animals with great interest, laughing 
heartily, and describing the tricks he fancied he 
saw them performing. After this, he announced 
the arrival of a man who was evidently the owner 
of the monkey and the dog, and he begged Doctor 
Liebeault to lend him a little money to reward 
the man for the amusement his animals had 
given him. But he saw no bear. 

A moment later he was conversing with the 
two physicians, in evident ignorance of all that 
he had just been saying and doing. He angrily 
denied that there had been any animals in the 
room. When asked why he himself was there, 
he could give no definite reply. Doctor Liegeois 
immediately put him into the hypnotic state, and 
demanded : 

" Do you know why you came here this morn- 
ing? " 

" Of course I do." 

" Why was it? " 

F3051 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

" Because you told me to." 

" When? " 

" A year ago." 

" But you did not come at nine o'clock? " 

" You did not tell me to come at nine o'clock. 
You said to come at exactly a year from the 
time you were talking to me. It was ten minutes 
to ten when you gave me your command." 

" And why did you not see the bear? " 

" Because you said nothing about a bear when 
you repeated your orders. You spoke only once 
of a bear. Everything else you spoke of twice. 
I thought you had changed your mind about the 
bear." * 

Obviously, the hypnotic self, distinct and 
different though it is from the primary, waking 
self, can reason, can analyze, can draw conclu- 
sions as readily as the conscious self, and is, to put 
it otherwise, as truly a self as the conscious self. 

Facts like these, as was said, have caused 

1 Dr. Li£geois's account of his many hypnotic experiments, 
as given in his " De la Suggestion et du Somnambulisme dans 
leurs Rapports avec la Jurisprudence et la M£decine legale/' 
forms one of the most striking contributions to the literature 

of hypnotism. 

[3061 



THE LARGER SELF 

numerous investigators to question the validity 
of the hitherto prevailing view of human per- 
sonality. The self, they affirm, is no single, con- 
tinuous, permanent entity. On the contrary, it 
is merely a loosely coordinated aggregation of 
mental states, forever shifting and changing, so 
that the self of to-morrow may be vastly differ- 
ent from the self of to-day. To quote Professor 
Ribot, the famous scientist, and one of the most 
distinguished exponents of this new view of the 
self: 

" The unity of the ego is not the unity of a 
single entity diffusing itself among multiple 
phenomena; it is the coordination of a certain 
number of states perpetually renascent, and 
having for their sole, common basis the vague 
feeling of the body. This unity does not diffuse 
itself downward, but is aggregated by ascent 
from below; it is not an initial, but a terminal 
point." 

And Ribot adds emphatically: 

" It is the organism, with the brain, its supreme 
representative, which constitutes the real per- 
sonality; comprising in itself the remains of all 
[3071 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

that we have been and the possibilities of all 
that we shall be. The whole individual character 
is there inscribed, with its active and passive 
aptitudes, its sympathies and antipathies, its 
genius, its talent or its stupidity, its virtues and 
its vices, its torpor or its activity." l 

Or, as the eminent psychologist, Alfred Binet, 
declares : 

'' We have long been accustomed by habits of 
speech, fictions of law, and also by the results 
of introspection, to consider each person as 
constituting an indivisible unity. Actual re- 
searches utterly modify this current notion. It 
seems to be well proven nowadays that if the 
unity of the ego be real, a quite different definition 
should be applied to it. It is not a single entity; 
for, if it were, one could not understand how in 
certain circumstances some patients, by exagger- 
ating a phenomenon which obviously belongs 
to normal life, can unfold several different per- 
sonalities. A thing that can be divided must 



1 Ribot's " Les Maladies de la Personalite." Quoted from 
F. W. H. Myers's translation in his " Human Personality and 
its Survival of Bodily Death," vol. i, p. 10. 



308] 



THE LARGER SELF 

consist of several parts. Should a personality be 
able to become double or triple, this would be 
proof that it is compound, a grouping of, and a 
resultant from, several elements." * 

But the brain, which Ribot identifies with the 
personality, is a mere organ of the body, perish- 
ing with the body. Does it follow that the self 
perishes with bodily death? Is it really without 
an abiding, indwelling principle superior to, 
and independent of, the physical organism — in 
short, a soul — that would enable it to survive 
the final catastrophe of earthly existence? Is 
man soulless? Does death end personality? 

Aye, those who hold with Ribot would reply. 
To speak of a soul is, in their view of the case, 
sheer mysticism, since " the ego in us is nothing 
more than the functional result of the arrangement 
for the time being of the molecules or ions of our 
brain matter." 

That is why, at the beginning of this chapter, 
I stated that, of all the labors of the modern 
investigators of the nature of man, none would 
seem to be so irreparably destructive as the blows 

1 "Les Alterations de la Personnalite," p. 316. 

[3091 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 

they have dealt at the traditional conception 
of human personality. 

Yet, when we probe a little deeper, it will be 
found that the damage is not so irreparable as 
would at first appear; nay, it will even be found 
that by their searching inquiries, the advocates 
of the brain-stuff theory have unwittingly pro- 
vided stronger reasons than were at any previous 
time available for insisting both on the actuality 
of the soul and the fundamental unity and con- 
tinuity of the ego. 

Undeniably, it is necessary to modify the old 
conception in some important respects. After 
the discoveries that have been made as to the 
disintegrating effects of natural and artificially 
induced sleep, of disease, of sudden frights, of 
profound emotional shocks, of alcohol and drugs, 
etc., it is idle to pretend that unity and continuity 
are distinctive characteristics of the ordinary 
self of waking life. So far as that self is concerned, 
its instability and divisibility are now plainly 
evident. 

What, however, if it can be shown that, equally 
with the secondary selves that may and so often 

[310] 



THE LARGER SELF 

do replace it, the primary self is only part of a 
larger self — a self which persists unchanged 
beneath all the mutations of spontaneous and 
experimental occurrence? In that case it will at 
once become clear that the situation has again 
changed completely, and that we are back to the 
traditional, the intuitive, the " common-sense " 
conception of personality, with the single dif- 
ference that the term " self " means something 
broader and nobler than when we limit it to the 
now demonstrated unstable, and ever-change- 
able self of ordinary consciousness. 

And it is precisely to such a view of the self 
that the discoveries of the modern investigators, 
when closely scrutinized, irresistibly impel us. 
If, I repeat, they have shown that what we usually 
look upon as the self is liable to sudden extinction, 
they have likewise brought to light abundant 
evidence to prove that there is none the less an 
abiding self, a self not dominated by but domi- 
nating the organism, and unaffected by any vicis- 
situdes that may befall the organism. 

To be sure, it must be said that, as yet, com- 
paratively few of those to whom we owe this 
[311] 



ADVENTURINGS IN THE PSYCHICAL 



evidence are prepared to admit that such is the 
ultimate outcome of their efforts. All the same, 
the evidence is there, not simply justifying, but 
rendering logically necessary, the hypothesis of 
a continuous, unitary ego, inclusive of, and su- 
perior to, all changing selves of outward mani- 
festation, and possessing powers thus far little 
utilized; but, under certain conditions, utilizable 
for our material, intellectual, and moral better- 
ment. 

I have, in fact, in the previous chapters pre- 
sented much of the evidence supporting this 
view. 1 All the phenomena of subconscious mental 
action — as variously exhibited in telepathy, 
crystal vision, automatic writing and speaking, 
the cure of disease by wholly mental means — 
point unmistakably, I am persuaded, to the 
existence of a superior self to which the ordinary 
self of everyday life stands in much the same 
relation as does the secondary self of a hysterical 
patient to the ordinary, normal self of a healthy 
person. 

1 See also my book, " The Riddle of Personality," especially 
pp. 69-70, 159-162. 

[3121 



THE LARGER SELF 

Not all the faculties of the larger self — for in- 
stance, the faculty involved in telepathic action 
— - seem to be adapted for ready employment here 
on earth. Which would argue, of course, for a 
future state in which, freed from all hampering 
limitations of the body, such faculties will have 
full manifestation. 

But most assuredly, as the findings of the 
psychopathologists indicate plainly, some among 
these hidden powers are amply available for use 
here and now, and may be so employed as to 
enable the self of ordinary consciousness to be- 
come less liable to disintegration, to ward off 
and conquer disease, to develop mental attain- 
ments of a high order, to solve life's varying 
problems with a sureness and success sadly 
lacking to most of us at present. 



[313] 



INDEX 



Aboulia, case of, 259-264. 
Angus, Miss, crystal-visions of, 

154-156. 
Automatism, 134-170. 

Badger, R., and case of BCA, 
273 n. 

Barrett, W. F., and telepathy, 
64, 100. 

Barzini, Professor, and Eusa- 
pia Paladino, 173. 

BCA, case of, 265-289; also 
mentioned, 292, 295, 298. 

Bernheim, H., hypnotic ex- 
periments by, 300-301. 

Bettany, Mrs., vision seen by, 
40-41. 

Binet, A., on personality, 308- 
309. 

Blakeway, W., telepathic ex- 
perience by, 90-91. 

Boyle, Mrs., case of, 4. 

Bramwell, J. M., hypnotic ex- 
periments by, 299-300. 

Brill, A. A., and psycho-analy- 
sis, 246-254. 

Burt, F. R., telepathic experi- 
ments by, 74, 81-83. 

Cahill, B. J. S., dream creation 
by, 210-211. 

Carrington, H., and medium- 
istic frauds, 175-178. 

Clairvoyance, 102-126. 

Cleaveland, W. M., case re- 
ported by, 143-146, 148. 

Cobbe, Miss, and the subcon- 
scious, 202-203. 



Cock Lane ghost, 183. 
Corliss, I. M., trance medium, 

138-141, 147. 
Cortachy Castle, Drummer of, 

13-17, 47, 48. 
Crawford, Lord, and D. D. 

Home, 173, 199. 
Crookes, W., and telepathy, 

63, 97, 98; and mediumis- 

tic phenomena, 181. 
Cross - correspondence, 160- 

170. 
Crystal-gazing, 127-131, 154- 

156. 



Dalrymple, Miss, and ghostly 

drummer, 14-15. 
Dickinson, L., case reported 

by, 156-157 n. 
Dissociation, 230-289. 
Donley, J. E., and cases of 

dissociation, 242-245, 254- 

257. 
Dreams, telepathic, 106-118; 

of lost objects, 121-126; 

problems solved in, 204- 

209 ; creative imagination in, 

209-214. 
Dunraven, Lord, and D. D. 

Home, 173, 199. 



Eardley, Lady, case of, 39-40, 

56,57,90. 
Eastlake, Lady, case of, 4-5. 
Entwistle, J. S. W., apparition 

seen by, 29-31. 



315 






INDEX 



Flammarion, C, and telep- 
athy, 63; and mediumistic 
phenomena, 181. 

Flournoy, T., and telepathy, 
63. 

Forbes, Mrs., automatic writer, 
160, 167-168. 

Genius, new theory of, 214- 
215. 

Ghosts, premonitory, 12-26; 
coincidental, 26-35; house- 
haunting, 35-38; experi- 
mental, 42-45 ; of inanimate 
objects, 49-52. See also 
Poltergeists. 

Golinski, C., telepathic dream 
by, 116-118. 

Goodrich-Freer, Miss, appari- 
tion seen by, 4-8; crystal- 
visions of, 127-131. 

Griffith, Mrs., telepathic 
dream by, 95-96. 

Gurney, E., alleged spirit 
messages from, 160-164, 166. 

Hallucinations, Census of, 48, 
49. See also Dissociation, 
Ghosts, Hypnotism, Hys- 
teria, Suggestion, and 
Telepathy. 

Hazard, Mrs., apparition seen 
by, 26, 27. 

Hilprecht, H. V., strange 
dream of, 207-209. 

Hodgson, R., alleged spirit 
messages from, 160, 168- 
169; hjrperaesthesia of, 219- 
220. 

Hohenzollerns, White Lady of, 
12. 

Holland, Miss, automatic 
writer, 160, 161-169. 

Home, D. D., trance medium, 
173, 199. 

Hughes, F. S., and Shropshire 
poltergeist, 188-189. 



Hughes, Mrs., telepathic 
dream by, 94-95. 

Huse, Miss, case of, 104-106. 

Hyperaesthesia, principle of, 
64-65; cases of, 121-126, 
216-227. 

Hypnosis, characteristics of, 
157, 158, 296-306; as aid in 
treating disease, 238-244, 
263, 265-289. See also 

POST-HYPNOTIC COMMANDS, 

and Suggestion. 

Hyslop, J. H., telepathic ex- 
periments by, 67-69, 84; 
also mentioned, 113, 131. 

Hysteria, and poltergeists, 
189-195; and physical phe- 
nomena of spiritism, 196 and 
n; modern theories and treat- 
ment of, 233-289. 

Jackson, E., apparition seen 
by, 33-35. 

James, W., and Huse case, 
104-106; and Mrs. Piper, 
149; also mentioned, 64, 71, 
72. 

Janet, P., and modern treat- 
ment of hysteria, 236-242, 
259-264; also mentioned, 
232, 283. 

Johnson, Miss, and experi- 
ments in cross-correspond- 
ence, 162-167. > 

Justine, dissociation of, 236- 
242. 

Lamont, Miss, and haunting 
of Petit Trianon, 8-12, 53- 
55. 

Lang, A., and crystal-gazing, 
154-156. 

Langtry, J., apparition seen 
by, 22-26, 57. 

Liebeault, A. A., and hypnotic 
experiments, 300-301, SOS- 
SOS. 



316 



INDEX 



Liegeois, Doctor, hypnotic ex- 
periment by, 303-306. 

Lodge, O., and telepathy, 63, 
100, 101; and Mrs. Piper, 
150-153; and spiritistic hy- 
pothesis, 170. 

Lombroso, C, and Eusapia 
Paladino, 172-173, 199. 

Lumley, Mrs., case of, 49. 

M., Mrs., apparition seen by, 
35-38, 55. 

Marcelle, dissociation of, 259- 
264, 283. 

Marks, F., telepathic experi- 
ence of, 114-116. 

McKechnie, C. C, appari- 
tion seen by, 27-29. 

Miles, Miss, telepathic ex- 
periments by, 74-81. 

Mompesson ghost, 183. 

Morison, Miss, and haunting 
of Petit Trianon, 8-12, 53- 
55. 

Morselli, H., and telepathy, 
64; and Eusapia Paladino, 
173. 

Moses, W. S., experimental 
apparition seen by, 73-74; 
mediumship of, 182 and n. 

Muscle reading, 65. 

Myers, F. W. H., and telep- 
athy, 100; alleged spirit 
messages from, 160, 161- 
163, 166-169; also men- 
tioned, 308 n. 

Newnham, P. H., hyperaes- 
thesia of, 220-221. 

Paladino, E., trance medium- 
ship of, 171-173, 196 n, 199. 

Personality, cases of second- 
ary and multiple, 259-289, 
292-295; conflicting theo- 
ries as to, 290-313. 



Petit Trianon, haunting of, 8- 
12,53-55. 

Piper, Mrs., automatic writer, 
149-154, 160, 168-169. 

Podmore, F., on telepathy, 
100; and poltergeists, 190- 
194; also mentioned, 41. 

Poltergeists, 2, 182-195. 

Post-hypnotic commands, ex- 
ecution of, 298-306. 

Prince, M., and case of BCA, 
265-289 ; hypnotic experi- 
ment by, 301-303; also 
mentioned, 52, 53, 298. 

Psychopathology, principles 
and methods of, 230-289. 

R., Mrs., case of, 301-303. 

Ramsden, Miss, telepathic ex- 
periments by, 74-81. 

Reeves, H. E., apparition seen 
by, 31-32. 

Reid, T., on personality, 291- 
292. 

Ribot, T., on personality, 307- 
308. 

Richet, C, and telepathy, 63. 

Robinson, Mrs., telepathic ex- 
perience of, 113-114. 

Ruttan, Mrs., case reported 
by, 22-26. 

Sidgwick, H., alleged spirit 
messages from, 160, 168. 

Sinclair, B. F., telepathic ex- 
periment of, 42-43. 

Spiritism, statistics, 134; rea- 
sons for vitality of, 135-137; 
trance mediumship in, 137- 
143, 158-159, 171-182; 
hysteria and, 194-196. 

Stevenson, R. L., dream crea- 
tion by, 211-214. 

Subconscious, the, 51-57, 64- 
69, 121-132, 158-159, 201- 
229, 232-289. 

Suggestion, in trance medium- 



[317] 



INDEX 



ship, 157-159, 196-197; in 

treatment of disease, 234- 
289; in experimental hyp- 
nosis, 297-306. 

Telepathy, experiments in, 42- 
46, 67-83, 119; cases of 
spontaneous, 58-63, 87-96, 
106-118; and trance me- 
diumship, 147-149, 153- 
156, 160-170; theories re- 
garding, 84-86, 97-100. 

Thompson, Mrs., automatic 
writer, 160. 

Titus, Mrs., case of, 105-106. 

Tout, C. H., mediumistic ex- 
periences of, 158-159. 

Turner, G. L., case of, 49-51. 

Usher, F. L., telepathic ex- 
periments by, 74, 81-83. 

Vaux-Royer, Mme., telepathic 
experiment by, 70-71. 



Verrall, Miss, automatic 

writer, 160, 168. 

Verrall, Mrs., automatic 

writer, 160, 162-169. 

Wallace, A. R., and medium- 
istic phenomena, 181. 

Wedgwood, Mrs., telepathic 
dream by, 106-108. 

Wesermann, Herr, telepathic 
experiment by, 43-45. 

Wesley, S., poltergeist expe- 
rience of, 183. 

West, Mrs., telepathic dream 
by, 111-113. 

Woodds, Knocking Ghost of 
the, 17-22, 47. 

Wright, Miss, automatic mes- 
sages by, 144-146, 148. 

Wyman, W. H., case reported 
by, 225-227. 

Young, A. K., telepathic 
dream by, 108-111. 



[318 




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